Free tool

Flower identifier by description

Pick what you see. Every answer is optional, and the list of 80 garden, balcony and wild flowers re-sorts itself after each one.

Five flowers side by side: a white oxeye daisy, blue harebells, a spike of pink foxglove, white yarrow and pink and lilac sweet peas. — Illustration (AI-generated, for orientation only)

In short

This flower identifier by description works without a photo: pick the flower's color, shape, petal count, where it grows, the month and the plant's height, and 80 common garden and wild flowers of Europe and North America are ranked by how many answers they match. Each result gives one field mark that confirms it and names its closest look-alike.

Shape and petal count beat color: many garden flowers come in five or six colors, and some change color as they open or age.
Every answer is optional; “I'm not sure” never removes a flower, and with three or more answers a flower that misses one still shows as a close match.
Your answers live in the page address, so a result can be shared; nothing is sent to a server.

Describe the flower in front of you and the list sorts itself: the flowers that match every answer first, then, once you have given three answers, the ones that miss just one.

How to use the flower identifier

Set the region. English pages start with Europe and North America together; pick one to drop flowers you won't meet there (great white trillium and common milkweed are North American only, bluebell and cow parsley European).
Pick every color you see on the petals. A pansy with violet and yellow petals gets both. Leave the stamens and the center out.
Pick a shape, looking at one flower, or at the whole head when the flowers are tiny (lavender, clover, yarrow).
Count the petals on one open flower. A tube that splits into five lobes counts as five. If you can't count them, leave it at "I'm not sure": flowers whose petals can't be counted in the field (lavender spikes, clover heads, snapdragons) are never marked down for it.
Add place, month and height if you know them. The month can be a range, and it wraps past December, so November to February finds the winter flowers.
Read the field mark on the top cards. "Hold a leaf to the light: tiny see-through dots" settles St John's wort in seconds; the look-alike line tells you what else it could be.

Every card cites the pages its traits came from. Copy the link to send the result to someone; the answers are in the address, and nothing leaves your browser.

What to look at on a flower, and why color alone misleads

Color is the first thing everyone notices and the least reliable thing to filter on:

Garden breeding. Purple coneflower is lavender-pink in the wild, but NC State Extension lists cultivars in white, red, orange and yellow. Roses, dahlias, zinnias and tulips each come in six colors in the set.
Color that changes. Viper's bugloss opens pink and turns vivid blue; great white trillium turns pink with age; the Christmas rose blushes pink as it fades.
Color that isn't a petal. The magenta of a bougainvillea is three papery bracts around a tiny white tubular flower, as the NC State Plant Toolbox describes it.

So read the build of the flower too. A daisy-like head is a crowd of tiny florets (the daisy family); a banner over two wings and a keel is a pea; a flat umbrella of small flowers is the carrot family or an onion relative. Then count petals, and look at one leaf: long and narrow, cut into leaflets, a single blade, or round to heart-shaped. The wildflower guide walks through the seven common flower builds in more detail, and the plant identification guide covers leaves, bark and whole-plant clues.

The flowers it covers

Eighty flowers that people in Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, the US, Canada and the UK actually meet, chosen because they are common, not because they are rare or showy:

Garden and balcony (51): geranium, petunia, rose, tulip, daffodil, bigleaf hydrangea, lavender, dahlia, French and pot marigold, sunflower, cosmos, zinnia, wax begonia, busy Lizzie, pansy, Chinese hibiscus, rose of Sharon, oleander, bougainvillea, common and star jasmine, lily, daylily, bearded iris, peony, chrysanthemum, gerbera, scarlet sage, fuchsia, camellia, azalea, clematis, wisteria, snapdragon, sweet pea, lupin, hollyhock, foxglove, agapanthus, hyacinth, crocus, snowdrop, lily of the valley, forsythia, lilac, butterfly bush, nasturtium, Christmas rose, purple coneflower and black-eyed Susan.
Meadows and roadsides: common poppy, cornflower, oxeye and common daisy, chicory, dandelion, meadow buttercup, red and white clover, wild carrot (Queen Anne's lace), viper's bugloss, purple loosestrife, yarrow, St John's wort, Canada goldenrod, field bindweed, harebell, New England aster and common milkweed.
Woodland: cow parsley, bluebell, wood anemone, primrose, sweet violet, lesser celandine, red campion and great white trillium.
Walls and paving: ivy-leaved toadflax and red valerian, with dandelion, butterfly bush, snapdragon and hollyhock also seeding into cracks.

Four flowers carry a toxicity note, each quoting the ASPCA's plant list: oleander, foxglove, lily of the valley and lilies. For houseplants, use the houseplant identification key instead.

Sources and limits

Colors, shapes, petal counts, heights and bloom seasons come from the NC State Extension Plant Toolbox and the Missouri Botanical Garden Plant Finder, which also give the months; range and habitats in Europe from each flower's species page on GBIF. Scientific names were checked against the World Flora Online list on 21 October 2026, with the older name kept as a synonym where it changed (wood anemone is now Anemonoides nemorosa, red valerian Valeriana rubra).

What it can't do:

It only knows 80 flowers. A flower outside the set will bring up its nearest look-alikes, never its own name.
Seasons were turned into months for a temperate climate; in the Mediterranean or the US South many garden flowers bloom earlier and longer.
It says nothing about edibility, and it doesn't judge toxicity: a flower without a note may still be toxic.

When the description runs out, one photo usually settles it: Plant Identifier names a flower from a single photo on your iPhone, and you can ask its plant expert a follow-up question about the result.

Questions people ask

Can I identify a flower by its description alone?

Often, if it is one of the 80 common flowers in the set and you answer shape and petal count as well as color. Treat the top result as a candidate and check the field mark it gives; a flower outside the set will only find its nearest look-alikes.

Why does the tool ask about shape before petals?

Shape splits the set fastest. A daisy-like head is really hundreds of tiny florets, an umbrella cluster points to the carrot or onion family, and a pea-like flower to the pea family. Petal count then separates flowers of the same shape.

What does it mean when a flower has no toxicity note?

Nothing. The tool shows a note only where the ASPCA lists a flower as toxic, and a missing note says nothing either way. If a child or pet has eaten part of a plant, call poison control or the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center.

Sources

Echium vulgare — NC State Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox
Bougainvillea — NC State Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox
Echinacea purpurea — NC State Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox
Hibiscus syriacus — Missouri Botanical Garden Plant Finder
Foxglove — ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center
WFO Plant List — World Flora Online

Flower identifier by description

In short