Automatic recognition of desert plant types by machine vision can support the research on wind prevention and sand fixation, ecosystem value assessment, vegetation restoration and reconstruction, and reduce the dependence on plant expert identification. At present, the research on the machine discrimination model of desert plants mainly relies on the standardized high-quality plant specimen images, lacking the desert plant images obtained under complex natural conditions. This dataset provides typical desert plant images of Xinjiang that can be used for the model training of deep learning image classification, including 15,550 digital camera images of desert plants in Xinjiang obtained under different seasons, natural backgrounds and lighting conditions, and covering 19 typical desert plant types. Suaeda salsa has the smallest number of images and Artemisia desertorum has the biggest, 465 and 1,240 respectively, with a median of 800, which has met the training needs of mainstream deep learning model. This dataset can provide basic data for desert plant image segmentation, target detection and automatic recognition.

The complex and varied mountainous conditions and climatic factors in Xinjiang contribute to the production of abundant species of wild medicinal plants. Based on the consecutive 4-year field survey in some areas of Xinjiang, this paper records the wild medicinal plants on the spot. Referring to the wild medicinal plants distributed in Xinjiang recorded in national and regional flora and monographs, domestic and foreign medicinal plant academic journals, major public specimen banks and databases, we reorganized a dataset of wild medicinal plant resources for heat-cleaning and detoxifying effects in Xinjiang. This dataset involves 127 species of angiosperms, 3 species of ferns, 2 species of gymnosperms, one species of lichens, and 4 species of other plants, including 13 items of information about medicinal plants: Chinese name, English name, Latin name, alias, phylum, order, family, genus, nature and flavor, efficacy, medicinal parts, habitat distribution, and picture. It can provide data support for the diversity research and protection of wild medicinal plants with heat clearing effect, detoxifying clearing, and the combination of the both effects as well as the medicine research on medicinal plants in Xinjiang.