2019 IEEE 14th International Conference on Industrial and Information Systems (ICIIS), 18-20 Dec.

, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

Identification of Medicinal Plants by Visual

Characteristics of Leaves and Flowers
T.G.A.G.D Amarawanshaline. D. P. Nawinna
A.D.A.D.S. Jayalath
Faculty of Computing Faculty of Computing
Faculty of Computing
SLIIT SLIIT
SLIIT
Malabe, Sri Lanka Malabe, Sri Lanka
Malabe, Sri Lanka
geeshdilshika@gmail.com dasuni.n@sliit.lk
danujsan@gmail.com

H.P Jayasuriya
P.V.D. Nadeeshan
Faculty of Computing
Faculty of Computing
SLIIT
SLIIT
Malabe, Sri Lanka
Malabe, Sri Lanka
jpaba15@gmail.com
dhanuka.dn@gmail.com

Abstract In Ayurveda medicine, correct identification
of medicinal plants is of great importance. Plants are
identified by human experts using their visual features
and aroma. Incorrect identification of medicinal plants
may lead to adverse results. Plant identification can be
automated using visual morphological characteristics
such as the shape, color, and texture of the leaves and
flowers. This paper presents how rare medicinal plants
were identified with high accuracy by applying image
processing and machine learning capabilities. For this
study, a database was created from scanned images of
leaves and flowers of rare medicinal plants used in Sri
Lankan Ayurveda medicine. Both the front and back
sides of leaves and flowers were captured. The leaves are
classified based on the unique feature combination.
Identification rates up to 98% have been obtained when
tested over 10 plants.
Keywords
medicine, Ayurveda, Neural network
I. INTRODUCTION
Ayurveda is an ancient medical system practiced in Sri
Lanka and its origin dates back to around 3000 years ago,
in Vedic times. The main ingredients of Ayurvedic
medicine are plant leaves, flowers and roots, and other
parts of plants such as bark. In ancient, the Ayurveda
doctors themselves collect medicinal plants to prepare
medicines. Today only a few Ayurveda doctors follow the
ancient methods. Because the manufacturing of Ayurveda
medicines has become a marketing factor. Today the
plants are collected from forest areas or gardens. Those
who collect them are not professionally trained in
identifying accurate medicinal plants. Because of these
manufacturing units of medicine and the people who are
searching for them often receive incorrect or substituted
medicinal plants. Most of these units lack adequate quality
control mechanisms on identifying the correct medicinal
plant. When plants arrived in dry mode, makes the manual
identification task much more complicated. Incorrect use
of medicinal plants may cause the Ayurveda medicine
ineffective. In this situation, identification of correct
medicinal plants conduces as an important task. In this
system we implement a feature to get the description of
the relevant medicinal plant, for what disease it is used for
and what are the other alternative names used from district
to district.
II. RELATED WORKS
In most of the research; Siraj et al have focused their
attempt by using the color and texture of the flower as the
features [1]. As the methodology, they have followed
three phases namely the image capturing, image
processing and Neural Network phases. The images were
captured using a digital camera. The flowers have placed
at the center of the camera. The dataset has 18 categories
of flower images. Flower identification and classification
are the most important task that needs to get accuracy.
This phase consists of four steps for image processing as
image filtering, image segmentation, region detection, and
feature extraction. NN was used to classify the images
based on color and texture. The overall results differ from
the types of flowers. Some flowers get 69% accuracy and
some have 100% accuracy. At the conclusion they have
concluded that the number of images of flowers depends
on getting the accuracy of the training result.
Almogdady et al have used the image processing
techniques for the identification. Color, texture, and shape
are the features of identifying flowers [2]. For the
methodology they have divided their approach into four
steps as image enhancement, image segmentation features
extraction and classification. They have used Chan-vese
image processing segmentation technique for segmenting
flowers from the rest of the image in order to simplify and
enhance the features extraction process. For the extraction
of features the have used HSV color descriptor, Gray
Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM) as texture
descriptor and Invariant Moments (IM) as a shape
descriptor. The images of flowers are cropped to get the
relevant size. They have done cropping a single flower
from bunch of flowers, cropping but keeping the full
bunch and keeping the same structure (No cropping). For
the classification part BACk Propagation ANN was used.
As the overall result they have included all flower species
with 20 images and acquired 80% accuracy.
Most of the researchers have used the image processing
techniques for feature extraction and CNN for the

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 2019 IEEE 14th International Conference on Industrial and Information Systems (ICIIS), 18-20 Dec., Peradeniya, Sri Lanka
classification. One of the attempts they have used color,
texture, and shape as features on identifying flowers [3].
In their approach consists of four steps as pre-processing,
segmentation, hand-design feature extraction and
classification. To segment the flower from the background
they have used saliency-segmentation-based approaches
to select the Region-Of-Interest (RIO) on flower images.
And have used a common segmentation technique called
mean-shift algorithm. They have used CNN for
optimizing the parameters. As the overall result shows
effectiveness of CNN for flower identification. And the
accuracy was 90%.
When we study leaf identification researchers furthermore
we could found some researchers have done leaf
identification by edge detection. [4] Mostly they have
used existing algorithms to grasp their objectives. In their
approach of identification of a leaf, they have used
Structural Decomposition for the feature extraction of the
leaf image. They have mainly focused on color mapping
by using pre-processing techniques and using four major
phases. Those steps that they have mentioned are
thresholding, edge detection, segmentation, and
classification.
They convert the same test image into three images by
changing the components of the image. In their research
paper, we can observe, considering Hue, Saturation
intensity they have converted them into grayscale images.
After-ward all the three images converted to binary image
When identifying a leaf they have used morphological
features to clarify the exact leaf. Initially this research
paper, [5] they have extract features of the leaf and used
some machine learning techniques to train a model to do
the leaf classification. In their study, they have used
Shallow Neural Network (SN), Radial Basis Function
(RBF) and Deep Belief Neural Network (DBN).
Training the model with the above-mentioned techniques
are can be categorized as supervised learning. The process
happening in this method is the model learns from a
named or labeled dataset constitute of different varieties
of leaf images. They have mainly focused on several
features on a leaf image. Color, shape, and texture of the
leaf are the features that they have considered. In the
image pre-processing once the test image is ready the first
step they have done is noise removal. The purpose of
doing noise removal is to maximize the accuracy of
getting features. Color-based feature extraction has done
by considering pixel values in the Red, Green and Blue
channels of the image that going to be tested. To extract
the shape based features mainly the authors have
considered the boundary of the leaf. By extracting the
boundary they have come up with the method to find out
the shape of the leaf.
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III. MATERIALS AND METHODS
A. Data Collection
At present, a standard image database of Ayurvedic
medicinal plants is not available. The research team
initially conducted a set of interviews with Ayurvedic
doctors in Ayurveda General Hospital Rajagiriya and
identified a set of rare plants used for Ayurvedic medicine
to be included in the prototype. Images of these medicinal
plants were collected mainly from the Botanical division
in Ayurveda Department, Navinna, and several private
botanical gardens in Sri Lanka.
The leaves and flowers were harvested in natural habitat,
and the selection of leaves, flowers, and plants was based
on rare plants. The images were colored images and stored
in jpeg format for further processing. The resolution of
the leaf and flower images are changed into uniform
resolution as 3120×4160 and the size between 200kB-
500kB. For each plant, we collected 500 images of leaves
and flowers. Accordingly, 5000 images of leaves and
flowers were collected in the database. The database of
the images of flowers and leaves is shown in Figure 1.
The local names and botanical names are given in Table 1.
Fig. 1: Leaf and flower images
Ela Nitul Maha Dathkatiya Maduruthala Thippili
Aniththa
Ankenda Iriveriya Koboneela Podi Arasi Thippili
B. Analysis
Analyzing large amounts of data manually is tough work.
It may take time and more effort. Therefore to overcome
these problems a technique was introduced as a Machine
Learning technique.
In Machine Learning techniques there are several
classifications. One of is Tensorflow. It is an open-source
for machine learning. It provides all the libraries and
resources to do the classification of data [7].
C. Convolutional Neural Network
Modern technology is based on computer models known
as artificial neural networks. There are different types of
neural networks. One of them is the Convolutional
Neutral Network (CNN). It is also a type of Machine
Learning network that applied to image displaying
problems. One image displaying problem is classification.
It is used to detect what is the image and what is involved
in the image. A CNN consists more than on convolutional
layers. It is a series of fully connected, grouped
convolutional layers and pooling. The convolution layer in
 2019 IEEE 14th International Conference on Industrial and Information Systems (ICIIS), 18-20 Dec., Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

the series takes the convolutional operations as the input. affect. Epoch is a measure of the number of times the
In the convolutional operation, there are three components training is done. Once the number of epoch increases
as the input image, feature detector, output image. The between 40- 60, high accuracy can be obtained.
feature detector is known as the mask or kernel. There are
masks as 3x3, 5x5, and 7x7. But for the convolutional Fig. 3: System model
purpose 3x3 mask is used. During this process some
features of images will be neglected [9]. But CNN
identifies the images with higher accuracy.

Fig. 2: Convolutional layers

D. Model of the proposed system

The system diagram of the proposed system is shown in
Figure 2. First, we dedicated most of the time to create the Fig. 4: Steps of extracting features on CNN
data set by capturing images of flowers and leaves of rare
medicinal plants. We visited the Botanical garden in
Ayurveda Department, Navinna to capture the images.
When the data collection was completed using CNN
created a model to train each of the images of the leaves
and flowers.
In CNN, the convolutional consist of the three
components as the input image, feature detector or mask
and output image. To get the accuracy, the mask is taken
3x3 form. An example is shown in Figure 4, the input
image and 3x3 mask are taken to identify the features of
the image. The 3x3 mask overlaps the input image as Fig. 5: Steps of extracting features on CNN
shown in Figure 5. By overlapping the input image, the
maximum value pixel will be extracted by applying the
3x3 mask continuously. The output image will be 2x2
image as shown in Figure 5. In this process, some features
of the input image will be neglected. But by extracting the
maximum value pixel the identification of the plant is
done in higher accuracy. The trained images will be stored
in the database to proceed with the identification.
In the testing phase, the trained images will be
tested through the predictions and give the result on
identifying the rare medicinal plant. To get the accuracy,
the number of images and the number of epochs will

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 2019 IEEE 14th International Conference on Industrial and Information Systems (ICIIS), 18-20 Dec., Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

Table 1: Botanical names

Fig.4: Accuracy graph on training set

Local Name Botanical Name

1 Ankenda Acronychia
pendunculata
2 Ela Nitul Plumbago
zeylanica l
3 Maha Aniththa
4 Thippili (Leaf) Piper longum
5 Dathkatiya
6 Maduruthala Ocimum
tenuiflorum
7 Iriveriya Plectranthus
zatarhendi
8 Koboneela Bauhiniya
variegata Fig.5: Validate-Accuracy graph on training set
9 Podi Arasi Croton officialis
10 Thippili (Flower) Piper longum

IV. RESULTS
The trained model for the neural network is tested on the
test set to get their respective classification accuracy. The
regularization parameters change to obtain the best model
characteristics from the data. The classification accuracies
are tabulated in Table 2.
The training set accuracy of using the model
obtained 100%. This accuracy depends on the number of
epochs that commits. And the test set accuracies were
between 95% - 99% when tested on 500 images each of
10 rare medicinal plants. Figure 4 shows the accuracy we
obtained by training the images using the model. Figure 5 Fig.6: Loss graph on training set
shows the loss or the errors that occurred during the
training. This graph shows that the loss decreases. That
means there is a high accuracy during the training. Figure
6 shows the validate accuracy. The validate id done due to
the overfitting and underfitting of the training of images.
Since when the training is done there is highest possibility
to achieve the highest accuracy on the training set.

Table 2: Classification Accuracies (100%)

Plant name Training Test Accuracy

Accuracy (%)
(%)
1 Ankenda 100 99
2 Ela Nitul 100 98
3 Maha Aniththa 100 98
4 Thippili 100 98
(Flower)
5 Dathkatiya 100 98
6 Maduruthala 100 99
7 Iriveriya 100 98
8 Koboneela 100 99
9 Podi Arasi 100 99
10 Thippili (Leaf) 100 98

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 2019 IEEE 14th International Conference on Industrial and Information Systems (ICIIS), 18-20 Dec., Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

V. CONCLUSION
The article proposed a robust technique using CNN for the
identification of rare medicinal plants. Test accuracy of
90% was obtained by using the TensorFlow on the dataset
that we created. This immunity was obtained from the
extraction of the relevant characteristics of the leaf image.
The samples were formed using neural networks for the
recognition of statistical models. The accuracy increases
with the number of training which is meant by epoch.
When the number of epoch increases, it can get high
accuracy.
[7] Identification of Ayurvedic Medicinal Plants by
Image Processing of Leaf Samples. Available at:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322059676
_Identification_of_ayurvedic_medicinal_plants_by_i
mage_processing_of_leaf_samples[Accessed 8 Mar.
2019]
[8] Introduction to Deep Learning Deep learning basics
with Python, Tensorflow and Keras Available at:
https://pythonprogramming.net/introduction-deep-
learning-python-tensorflow-keras/[Accessed 9 Mar.
2019]

VI. ACKNOWLEDGMENT [9] A Complete Guide to Types of Neural Network.

Available at:
We would like to thank the Department of Ayurveda in https://www.digitalvidya.com/blog/types-of-neural-
Navinna for providing the images of plants and their networks/[Accessed 9 Mar. 2019]
details.
[10] Plant Identification Using Tensorflow. Available at:
https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.c
gi?article=1271&context=cpesp[Accessed 9 Mar.
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