New alien plants database for Europe

Alien plants in Europe are taking hold and growing in numbers every year, and new database to help identify them has been created.

The Europe Aliens website isn't about little green men from mars, but instead its a serious attempt to catalogue alien species to allow Europe wide control mechanisms to be put into place.

The threat to biodiversity is the reason for this, too many alien plants in Europe means that many endemic species are struggling to survive and thus altering the entire ecological balance.

This new database also makes it really easy to spot which particular variety of plant has made itself at home in any particular area, some aren't quite so dangerous, while others can be devastating.