Confederacy of a Dunce - Mystery plant (not a pot plant or a pot plant)

Thursday, June 07, 2007

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Mystery plant (not a pot plant or a pot plant)

I consider myself to have quite a decent array of Web searching skills. I'm quite up to speed on the various options Google provides, and tend to use them in complex combinations in order to try and get useful information with a minimum of chaff. I also have a tendency to do searches in parallel, popping up multiple tabs/windows at the same time to allow quicker cycling through the possibilities (something that infuriates Mrs. Dunce to no end when she's shoulder-surfing). Anyway, I tend to be pretty successful at finding what I'm looking for.

Or at least, when it comes to text. Or information that can be found using text, such as identifying a song from a snippet of lyrics (even when they're almost entirely in an unknown language, like this catchy number (link to lyrics). But when it comes to non-text searches, let me just say "Ouch".

For example, Mrs. Dunce is a big fan of a certain plant that grows well near us. It's a flowering tree with some lovely bluish-purple flowers. As pictured here (with Mrs. Dunce wondering about its name).

I've certainly tried text-based searching to find this sort of thing (text-based search tricks work just fine in Google Images, as long as you know the right sort of terminology), but it just isn't happening. Searching for things like "purplish-blue flowers" gets you similar plants but they just don't look quite right. And I get really tired of lavender, lavender, lavender, lilac, lilac, lilac which don't look right either. I've managed to find a nice online flower identifier but its questions assume a level of knowledge/attention well beyond my own (in addition to referring only to northeastern and north central US and adjoining bits of Canada). And there's no way I'm going to admit my ignorance by going into a flower shop and asking questions that reveal my ignorance, or posting the picture on a plant identification forum where no doubt it would be instantly identified.

Of course, by creating this post, I'm revealing my ignorance after all. But it's related to the more general question of how one might go about using text-based search techniques to find out information about an image you are having trouble identifying. This does not just apply to plants or flowers. Say for instance you see an image like this one. The man in the blue shirt is very famous, but who is he? You might get some hints from the name of the website, and the people standing next to him, but then what? Or maybe you see this picture and want to figure out what kind of bus it is (there is a very precise answer to this one which can be found using a different set of simple search tricks).

Anyway, it would probably be much easier to ask someone. But that would take the challenge out of it.