What on earth is that type of tree? It’s a birch, no a spruce. I’m embarrassed to say that when I’m in a park I regularly ask myself these questions and am rarely correct. Oak I know, as well as beach, maple, pine, but what sort of pine? Leafsnap is a fantastic app available for iPhone and iPad that educates you in the fading art of tree genera, or in layman’s terms, telling one tree from the next.

Simply pluck a leaf from the tree, or from the ground and take a snap of it with your smart phone against a white background. Leafsnap will decipher the outlines of the leaf and then return suggested species identifications, plus high res images of leaves, bark and spring blossoms so you can confirm your identification. Then all you have to do is wander home satisfied with the knowledge and press your leaf into a book like you did as a kid, or have I lost you already with this one?

Leafsnap is the first in a series of electronic field guides being developed by researchers from Columbia University, the University of Maryland, and the Smithsonian. The app currently includes the trees of New York City and Washington, D.C., and will soon grow to include the trees of the entire continental United States—though it is available for download in Canada.