Professional Land Surveyors run into all sorts of exotic plant life while at work.  I say exotic because many of the plants that we see day-to-day have arrived to the location which they presently can be found due to human action, animal transportation or have been planted for economic or spiritual purposes.  The science of ethnobotany is the study of both native and non-native plant species and their dispersal around the globe as it relates to human culture.  With this new app I am about to tell you about, you can help identify and map non-native species using your phone.  A similar app of interest is Leafsnap App for identifying trees.

The Environment Agency and the University of Bristol have released a new smartphone application and website to help track invasive non-native plants in the UK.

The Plant Tracker app allows anyone to take and submit geo-located photographs of non-native plants that they find. Each submitted report is then added to that plant species' own Google Map. The Google Maps show the distribution of reports submitted for each plant.

Data collected by the PlantTracker app is also added to the national recording scheme for vascular plants run by the Botanical Society of the British Isles. Thank you to Gmaps Mania for sharing this post.