There are a number of online services that take a photograph of a plant and identify the most likely species. Google Lens has an app, and there is one called PlantNet on Android. A link into one of those would be very, very helpful for newbies. Every week we get many questions to identify a tree, with lots of guesses, and this would help that.

Could be nice yeah - is there an app you tested that works well for bonsai?

PlantNet works fine for most species, independant of being a bonsai or not, as the leaves are the same...

It's based on appearance of leaves, flowers, fruit or bark for example, you can choose between it, and the picture must be of the subject you chosed, not a picture of the whole tree, however sometimes a full picture works, you can also sum pictures to add accuracy.

I've been playing with it here, and it's really accurate, unless the leaves are waaay too commom between different species, or if the species has too many sub-species... For that, the app display probability percentages...

Most of the plants I have used Plantnet or Google Lens on are in the ground somewhere, with a possible bonsai future. I don't know if they have an API to interface with. If not, then the idea won't work.

I have one that I dug up last year that I thought was a cherry. Plantnet and lens have given me four different answers, none of which seem to be right. They may not be the be all and end all.

Well, the app instructs you to take a picture of a single leaf (or a close on it) to make it easier for it...

Albas wrote:

Well, the app instructs you to take a picture of a single leaf (or a close on it) to make it easier for it...

This tree looks like a cherry, with gray bark and Japanese cherry looking leaves, but the thing has what looks like thorns 3-4 inches/ 10 cm long. Plantnet and Lens thought it is a Bradford pear, a regular pear, a plum of some kind, and one other thing, but none of those have thorns.

Actually, what I am calling thorns have leaves coming out of them about the middle of the thorn, so maybe these just count as pointy branches.