Menlo Park, California - There are millions of extra pet photos popping up, but what about those promised trees?

Instagram is working to make one of its features clearer after a viral trend hit its peak on Monday.

Millions of people appeared to be misled by an Insta Story sticker claiming a tree would be planted for every pet photo they shared on the platform.

Yet, users shared their cuddly companions without knowing where the sticker came from, or who would be planting the trees.

After some confusion as to its original source, the account Plant A Tree Co has claimed responsibility for the trend, which saw users posting pictures of their animals accompanied by a sticker with the caption: "We'll plant one tree for every pet picture."

Stickers add a small image or line of text to a post in an IG Story, and on November 1, Instagram rolled out the "Add Yours" feature – which allows users to reshare and create their own post with a sticker as part of a public thread.

Plant A Tree Co claimed it made its sticker as "a fun tree-planting campaign where we can show off our awesome pets," but more than four million users have since used it.

The page said it quickly realized it "does not have the resources" to fulfil the promise.

"We immediately realized the post would grow too big and that we didn't have the resources to plant that many trees, so we deleted it 10 minutes later," said Plant A Tree Co in a statement on the platform.

The page said it is now hosting a fundraiser for Trees For The Future, a charity aiming to tackle hunger, "so we can ACTUALLY plant 4 million trees" – and has raised more than $3,000 so far.

Trees For The Future said that it is "not affiliated" with Plant A Tree Co.

"When the fundraiser came to our attention, we immediately reached out to the group asking them to clarify the nature of the fundraiser, and we reported the post to Instagram," Trees For The Future added.

Plant A Tree Co has previously used Instagram campaigns to raise money, once pledging that reposting its content on a personal story would generate $0.01 for a charity.

A since-deleted May 2019 post, found on archiving website archive.org, shows the page then encouraged followers to "repost on your story to plant 100 trees."

A spokesperson for Meta, Instagram's parent company which recently rebranded from Facebook, said: "The 'We'll plant one tree for every pet picture' trend shows the power of the Instagram community to raise awareness on important topics.

"Like all other 'Add Yours' sticker threads, it was started by an independent Instagram account - not Instagram."

The "Add Yours" stickers are supposed to show their original author when clicked on, except in some cases, such as when the creator deletes their original post, or if their account is private. Meta is working to make these cases clearer.

Plant A Tree Co is now petitioning Instagram to help them plant 4 million trees in the wake of the debacle.

"We think it's only fair, since you let it spread well after we deleted the post," they wrote in an open DM to Instagram. They also encouraged users to tag the platform to add some pressure.

Meta has yet to respond to the ask.