Every change
How a plant’s own page grew, newest first — the same plain notes that go out with each update.
Version 1.1
October 17, 2026- in the Pacific Northwest, a plant's page now says whether the region's own botanists agree it's native — the Burke Museum's and OregonFlora's checklists — and names the one that disagrees, as on meadow checkermallow.
- show one plant type alone. Hold Shift and click a type square, or long-press it on a phone. Do it again on that type to show everything except it.
- the Bloom tile on every plant page now shows the flower's colour as a small dot beside the word, two halves for a two-tone flower. The drawing of the plant growing uses the same colour.
- the "Near the vegetables" line is off every plant page. It said the same thing on all of them, so it lives once, as the Natives & crops card on the Plants index.
- Kew's check on a plant's native status shows a green tick or a caution mark, and a small clock tag with the date that opens what the check means. "Where it's native" is now "Habitat", which is what it describes.
- "How to grow more" gives each method room to breathe, and a plant's identity code has a copy button.
- what a tough plant puts up with (trampling, rubble, cracks, no watering) now has its own Resilience card beside Growing needs, instead of a line that ran off the edge of the plant's header. Wild thyme shows it.
- The wild leek page now says what the Myaamia Center says — šikaakwa, written "Chicago" by the French, names both the wild leek and the striped skunk.
- the Kantō Aristolochia page said 4 moths feed on it from field records; the field-only figure is 3, and the page now says both.
- the Soil pH tile now calls a range like 4.5–6.5 "acidic" instead of "around neutral", and 7.0–8.5 "alkaline". Eastern hemlock is one of the plants that now read right.
- karaka's page now says Māori planted it for its kernels, which are food only after long cooking and soaking, not for its fruit. Harakeke is the main plant of Māori weaving, not the only one.
Version 1.0
October 12, 2026- every plant page now says whether Kew's World Checklist agrees it's native where you are, and when we asked. Where Kew disagrees — eight plants so far — the page says that too.
Version 0.39
October 11, 2026- a plant's main photo is now the one iNaturalist itself chose for the species, or none. Before, some plants showed whatever free photo came next, like persimmon seeds that looked like bread. Those plants show their drawing until someone picks a photo.
- Words a page stresses now show in bold or italic, not between stray asterisks — on plant pages, look-alikes, native swaps and planting guides. The brimstone line on alder buckthorn is one.
- a page that is still fetching no longer sits blank. A seedling grows while you wait — stem, leaves, then a flower — and steps aside the moment the page arrives.
Version 0.38
October 9, 2026- propagation notes for France and Kantō now cite pages we opened and checked, instead of "nursery practice". Where a source disagreed, the note changed — European larch needs no chilling, ivy cuttings come from climbing shoots — and a few with nothing checkable say so.
Version 0.37
October 8, 2026- nettles now carry a "Stings" label, and the "No thorns or stings" filter leaves them out.
- annuals have their own category, starting with sea blush. Instead of a growth rate, their pages say they last one season and come back from seed.
Version 0.36
October 2, 2026- Indigene reaches Asia. Konara oak, the tree the plain's old coppiced woods were built on, feeds 531 kinds of caterpillar here — more than any other plant in the app.
- the satoyama flora joins the catalogue — wild cherry, keyaki, bush clover, susuki grass. Enoki hackberry is the one tree Japan's national butterfly can raise its young on.
- American bittersweet, virgin's bower and sensitive fern join the catalogue. Bittersweet's orange capsules split to scarlet seed in October and feed waxwings through February, when nothing else is left.
- how sure we are of a plant's figures is now a three-bar meter instead of a paragraph. Tap it for what each level means.
- confidence now follows one rule for every plant, set by where its caterpillar count comes from. Many American plants drop to medium or low — a sign of where we need better sources, not worse plants.
- the labels under a plant's name are a word or two now, like "No watering" or "Thorny", and each one opens its full meaning on the new plant traits page.
- a plant or animal native to three regions or more now says "Native to: 4 regions" — tap it (or point at it) for the list. Choosing another region's figures, or photos, works the same way, on one line.
- "See it near you" takes much less room. Your location, a ZIP code or a region where it lives now share one row, and the privacy link sits beside the intro instead of under the buttons.
- on a laptop, plant and animal pages fill both columns instead of leaving half the screen empty. An animal's plants now flow down two columns, region after region, and a plant's growth drawing sits under its photo.
- notes no longer crown "the most valuable" or "the biggest" plant where two notes disagreed, and no longer talk about "this list" — they describe your garden, not our spreadsheet.
- the plants index opens with five short links — look-alikes, swaps, worst invasives, crops, growing more — instead of four paragraphs, so the search is on the first screen.
- a plant's page puts its "Figures for" region switch right above the figures, the photo link beside the photo, and a title on the growth drawing. Care and wildlife writing moved into two cards: Growing needs and Ecosystem services.
- figure labels are shorter in English and French ("Caterpillars", "Hardiness"), and a wrapped label no longer knocks its tile out of line. The "Year 10" tile is now "Growth": how fast it grows, then its height by year 10.
- "keystone plant" is now "essential plant" on labels, tiles and region counts — a plant local wildlife leans on far more than most. Ecologists' word for it is still there, explained, where you tap for more.
- dozens of notes were corrected. A monarch needs a milkweed, not one particular milkweed; yerba buena means "good herb"; Europe has more than one green butterfly; a bushtit weighs about five paperclips.
- wild garlic now warns that every part is toxic to dogs and cats, and that its leaves look like two poisonous plants.
- the "deer tend to leave it alone" tag is off plants deer happily browse, like hemlock, Douglas-fir, wild roses and bramble.
- Plant photos show up on the full plants list again, and while scrolling they now load where you've stopped first, instead of for rows you've already passed.
- on a plant native to several regions, tapping another region above its figures switches to that region's numbers again, and the page stays where you were instead of jumping to the top.
Version 0.34
September 24, 2026- the yarrow you buy as seed is often the European kind, naturalized here rather than native. The plant's page now says so, and says to ask for the western one instead.
Version 0.33
September 24, 2026- the plant list has a fourth card at the top, for the question that stops people between choosing a native and digging the hole — will it bring pests?
- on a phone, the last card you tapped at the top of the plant list stayed lit up with its link underlined, as though a mouse were resting on it. It lets go now.
Version 0.31
September 18, 2026- five natives the lists were missing — American beech, American basswood, eastern hemlock and eastern white pine join the Mid-Atlantic, and coontie joins North & Central Florida. See the plants
- American beech is now the answer to a European one, which is a better sentence than the oak we had to offer before. Same grey trunk, same copper winter leaves, and the caterpillars are here.
- coontie is the only plant an Atala butterfly caterpillar can eat, and its range is creeping back north as people replant it. It belonged on the central Florida list all along.
Version 0.29
September 18, 2026- Southern California's list had no evergreen trees in it at all. Four are in now: Tecate cypress — the region's own, and the only food of one rare butterfly — with Torrey pine, Coulter pine and California juniper.
Version 0.28
August 30, 2026- Clearer ways in on the plant list. The pointers under the plant search — spot a look-alike, find a native to grow instead of a common ornamental, or make more of a plant — are now tidy cards, an icon each.
Version 0.27
August 28, 2026- A plant's page now tells you how common it is around your garden, without being asked. If you've given the app a spot, "See it growing near you" opens with how often people have recorded that plant nearby — and says which spot it counted.
- A region gets an answer too. Picked your region from a list instead of sharing a spot? The page now says how often the plant is recorded across that whole region, from dated figures that travel with the app.
- A linked photo says "Sighting". It used to show the observation's number, which told you nothing — now a row with a sighting looks different from one without, and the button below offers to add another.
- The sightings lookup opens in one line. "See it near you", and a plant's "See it growing near you", took three lines to say what they now say in one: community-verified iNaturalist photos, near a place you pick.
- The count no longer comes with a gallery attached. It used to take the same tap, and the same big download, as the photographs. Now the number arrives on its own, and the photos still wait until you ask for them.
- "No close-ups yet" was squeezed into a thin column. On a plant nobody has photographed for us, that line sat in one narrow photo slot, a word or two per line. It now runs the full width of the card, and says it in fewer words.
Version 0.26
August 9, 2026- "Seldom recorded around here." On a plant's page, under the nearby photos, how often people have recorded it within 31 miles compared with every other plant — so you can put back the ones your area is short of.
Version 0.25
August 8, 2026- "See it near you" is half as tall on a computer. Asking where to look and offering to look somewhere else were stacked down the page; they now sit side by side. On a phone, nothing moves.
Version 0.24
August 7, 2026- Every plant now has a photo page of its own. The whole plant from a few steps back, then leaves, flowers and fruit up close, each chosen by a person and labelled. Look for 📷 More photos under the plant's name — alder buckthorn's, for instance.
- You can send someone straight to one part of a plant's page. Every heading now carries a small
#: tap it and the link to that section is copied. Follow one and the card lights up green for a moment. - "What it does for the ecosystem" is a third shorter. The seven things a plant does now sit as a list you can read in one look, with each explanation appearing when you ask for it — hover on a computer, tap on a phone.
Version 0.23
August 4, 2026- You can now see what a plant looks like without opening it. The photographs from the plant pages now appear on the lists too: every native Indigene knows, and every region's roster. Where nobody has chosen a photograph yet, the drawing stays.
Version 0.22
August 4, 2026- The app now says who eats what, all over Europe. Atlantic France named an animal for five of its plants; it now names them for 43 of 46. Look at alder buckthorn: a brimstone caterpillar can eat it and nothing else.
Version 0.21
August 3, 2026- Real photographs on plant pages. Where we've found a good, freely-licensed picture, a plant's profile opens with a photograph of the species instead of the drawing — 188 plants so far, each credited to the naturalist who took it.
Version 0.20
August 1, 2026- A plant's page tells you when you've already got somewhere to put it. If you've saved a spot, a plant now says whether it would suit that ground, by name, under Want to plant it? Tap the spot to see what else thrives there.
Version 0.19
August 1, 2026- A real photograph where a plant's page had a drawing. The picture beside a plant's name used to be chosen by its type — the same shrub shape for every shrub. It can now be a photo of that species, with the photographer named below.
- Every plant now has its own picture on a shared link. Send someone white oak and the preview is a card made for that plant: its name, its shape, and four numbers — caterpillars fed, creatures that depend on it, months in flower, how tall it grows.
Version 0.18
July 31, 2026- A plant's page fits a computer screen now. A plant on a laptop used to be a narrow strip down the middle, five screens tall. Its sections now run in two columns, so it's half as tall and "check your spot" comes early. A phone is unchanged.
- Where to look a plant up has moved to the very bottom of its page. The list of botanical databases is where you go once this page has run out of answers, so it now comes after Want to plant it? Check your spot rather than before it.
Version 0.17
July 31, 2026- The preview now describes the page you actually sent. Every Indigene link used to show the same card. Share butterfly weed and the card now says what it does for monarchs; share the monarch and you get that page's own words. 261 pages in all.
- Found photos are a gallery now. They used to arrive as a stack of boxes, three-quarters of it small grey type. Every photo the lookup found now sits in one grid of thumbnails; tap any of them and the big view carries the credit, licence and date.
- A plant's own address used to answer "page not found". Not to you — the app opened fine — but to the machines that build the preview boxes in Messages, Slack and WhatsApp. Every page Indigene invites you to share now answers as a real page.
- "See it growing near you" was coming up empty for common plants. We had been asking iNaturalist for the hundred most recent photos of every native in your region, then hunting for yours among them. Indigene now asks about the one plant you're looking at.
- The little captions on the photo thumbnails are gone. They tried to fit "under 1 km away · seen June 2023" into a 90-pixel square, and on a phone, which has no hover, you could never see them at all. Tap a photo for all of it.
Version 0.16
July 30, 2026- The plants list has a simpler address and a proper wide layout. It now lives at indigene.app/plants, a search is shareable as
?q=oak, and on a laptop the cards spread into three columns instead of one phone-width ribbon.
Version 0.15
July 30, 2026- The menu at the top of every page now says what each page holds. "Explore" is now Regions and "Search" is now Plants. In French the three read Régions, Plantes and Faune.
- Sharing a plant is a small link button at the top of its page, beside the regions it's native to, instead of a full-width button at the bottom. It's in reach the moment you recognise a plant, and it no longer spends a whole row of a phone screen.
- Reading in French, being answered in English. The sentences Indigene writes for you personally — "Sun is a good match", "Winters here are too cold for it" — were still coming out in English. They now follow your language, and your units. Try white oak.
Version 0.14
July 29, 2026- The region cards on Meet the natives no longer carry a "USDA 6b–7a" badge. On a page whose only job is "pick where you live", it answered a question nobody had asked yet. It's still on every region's own page.
- Sharing a plant's own web address, like indigene.app/plants/quercus-alba, works again on the new domain. Those addresses are handed back to the app on arrival, and the hand-off still assumed the old site.
Version 0.13
July 29, 2026- Explore now leads with places, not paragraphs. It used to open with five plant descriptions, ahead of the one thing you actually have to choose: where you are. Each card is now a region, with one native starring on the front of it.
- The USDA hardiness zone is its own little badge now, instead of trailing in brackets after the place: "Pennsylvania" with a small
USDA 6b–7atag beside it. Hover or tap-and-hold it and it explains what the zone means.
Version 0.12
July 28, 2026- One tap now takes you through every sighting's photos, not just one person's. The viewer used to stop at the edge of the sighting you tapped. The arrows now carry on into the next, telling you where you are: "9 / 11 · sighting 3 of 4".
- Bigger, tidier photo thumbnails. A sighting's little squares now sit three to a row and fill the card, instead of leaving a lonely fourth picture on a second row. Where there are more than fit, the last wears a "+2" badge.
- The showcase cards on Meet the natives are more compact: the keystone mark now sits beside the plant's name as a small arch, and "Full profile →" tucks in at the end of the description instead of taking a line of its own.
Version 0.11
July 28, 2026- The little person standing beside each plant in the growth chart now looks like a person — head, shoulders, arms and legs — instead of a featureless post, at every size from towering oak to knee-high wildflower.
- The growth chart's labels are a touch bigger and drawn in the page's strongest text color, so the feet markings and year captions are easy to read in both light and dark mode — even in bright sun.
- When you search for a plant, each result now underlines the part of its name that matches what you typed. And when a plant matched through a less common name — "Maypop" for Purple Passionflower — the result says so.
- "See it growing near you" could get stuck at "Asking iNaturalist…" for the same reason — the app checks its on-device photo cache before asking, and that check could hang forever. It now gives the cache a couple of seconds, then asks iNaturalist directly.
- The bottom row of the growth chart's labels — like "(5′6″)" under the little person — was getting cut off by the caption below. The chart now leaves proper room for both label rows.
- The growth chart could be drawn with the wrong colors — pale, hard-to-read labels on a light page — if your device switched between light and dark looks after the page loaded. The chart now redraws itself when that happens, and also when the screen size changes.
Version 0.10
July 27, 2026- Almost nothing hides behind a tap anymore. A plant's ecosystem, propagation and reference sections, the 60-second soil check and each result's score breakdown are simply visible on the page. Only the two big panels on results still fold away.
Version 0.9
July 27, 2026- Real photos of recommended plants growing near you, taken by people in your area and shared on iNaturalist. Open a plant's page and tap "See it growing near you" — nothing loads until you ask.
- Photos open in a full-screen viewer inside the app, so you can look closely and then get right back to where you were.
- Nearby photo results only show plants that are truly native around that spot, so a garden escapee never sneaks into your recommendations.
- Every photo credits the person who took it and links back to their original sighting, and only photos their takers chose to share openly are shown.
Version 0.8
July 22, 2026- A built-in plant name book (a registry): every plant Indigene knows has exactly one entry tying together its scientific name, its common names, and its identity in the world's big plant databases.
- Plant pages now show references: links to the very same plant at USDA, GBIF, and other authorities, so you can double-check anything we say.
- iNaturalist links now land directly on that exact species' page.
Version 0.5
July 18, 2026- You can share a link that opens a specific section of a plant's page, like its propagation tips.
Version 0.3
July 16, 2026- Explore pages: browse every plant Indigene knows without sharing your location — and every plant, region, and category has its own address you can share with anyone.
- A stat grid on every plant, like a trading card. Tap any stat to read what it means in plain words.
Version 0.1
July 12, 2026- Every plant shows how big it will really get in 1, 3, 5, and 10 years, drawn to scale beside a person — no surprises a decade later.