Deep HybridNet with hybrid optimization for enhanced medicinal plant identification and classification

Herbal leaves, known for their efficacy in treating a range of infectious diseases including cancer, asthma, and heart conditions, are still widely used by medical professionals. Traditionally, villagers have identified these plants visually, but given the similarity in appearance among various species, this method is prone to human error. Accurate identification of these plant species is critical for effective treatment. Hence, the development of an intelligent plant classification system is crucial to reduce the risk of misidentification and enhance treatment accuracy. This paper introduces the deep HybridNet with hybrid optimization module (DeepHybrid-OptNet) a novel deep learning framework for medicinal plant identification and classification. Merging convolutional and recurrent neural network architectures, deep HybridNet excels in extracting complex botanical features through channel-wise feature extraction modules in convolutional neural network (CNN) and feedback loop in recurrent neural network (RNN). The incorporation of a DeepHybrid-OptNet module enhances the model's learning efficiency and accuracy. Empirical results on the Mendley and folio dataset demonstrate the framework's superiority over existing methods in accuracy, precision, and recall making it a valuable asset for botany and herbal medicine research.