Native Plants of North Georgia: There’s an App for That!

The University of Georgia Extension has released an app to help families and outdoor enthusiasts make the most of their outdoor explorations.  “Native Plants of North Georgia,” now available for iPad, iPhone and Android devices, is a consumer-oriented field guide of the flowers, trees, ferns and shrubs that populate North Georgia’s yards and forests.

Mickey Cummings, UGA Extension coordinator for Union County and the app’s content author, has spent his career identifying plants for day-trippers, hikers and homeowners in North Georgia. He first developed a hard copy of his guide, a pocket-sized laminated flipbook, in 2008 to help the public identify local plants on the fly. Representatives from Southern Regional Extension Forestry, UGA Extension and the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Office of Information Technology decided to use the popular guide as a pilot project in their development of mobile applications for UGA Extension.

The app, developed by application programmer Benaiah Morgan Pitts, allows the public to browse photos of plants organized by their blooming periods and includes leaf and bloom descriptions as well as scientific and common names. All versions of this app are free and ready for download through the Apple App Store and Google Play (search for “Native Plants of North Georgia”).  The original pocket-sized flipbooks are also still available for purchase at www.caes.uga.edu/publications.