 | |
Type of site | Encyclopedia |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Created by | Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew andMissouri Botanical Garden |
| URL | www |
| Launched | December 2010 |
| Current status | Inactive since 2013 (version 1.1), superseded byWorld Flora Online |
The Plant List was a list ofbotanical names of species of plants created by theRoyal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and theMissouri Botanical Garden and launched in 2010.[1] It was intended to be a comprehensive record of all known names of plant species over time, and was produced in response to Target 1 of the 2002–2010Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSP C), to produce "An online flora of all known plants". It has not been updated since 2013, and has been superseded byWorld Flora Online.[2][3]
In October 2012, the follow-up projectWorld Flora Online was launched with the aim to publish an online flora of all known plants by 2020.[4] This is a project of theUnited Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, with the aim of halting the loss of plant species worldwide by 2020. It is developed by a collaborative group of institutions around the world response to the 2011-2020 GSPC's updated Target 1. This aims to achieve an online Flora of all known plants by 2020.[2] It was conceived in 2012 by an initial group of four institutions; theMissouri Botanical Garden, theNew York Botanical Garden, theRoyal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and theRoyal Botanic Gardens, Kew.[5]
There is a complementary project called theInternational Plant Names Index, in which Kew is also involved. The IPNI aims to provide details of publication and does not aim to determine which are accepted species names. Newly published names are automatically added from IPNI to theWorld Checklist of Selected Plant Families, a database which underlies the Plant List.
The Plant List has 1,064,035 scientificplant names ofspecies rank,[6] of which 350,699 are accepted species names, belonging to 642 plantfamilies and 17,020 plantgenera.[7]The Plant List accepts approximately 350,699 unique species, with 470,624synonyms for those species, which suggests that many species have been referred to under more than one name. As of 2014[update], The Plant List has determined that another 243,000 names are "unresolved", meaning that botanists have so far been unable to determine whether they are a separate species or a duplication of the 350,699 unique species.
When The Plant List was launched in 2010 (theInternational Year of Biodiversity), it attracted media attention for its comprehensive approach.Fox News highlighted the number of synonyms encountered, suggesting that this reflected a "surprising lack" of biodiversity on earth."[8] The Plant List also attracted attention for building on the work ofEnglishnaturalistCharles Darwin, who started a plant list called theIndex Kewensis (IK) in the 1880s.Kew has added an average of 6,000 species every year since the IK was first published with 400,000 names of species.[8] However, the IK (which by 1913 avoided making taxonomic judgement in its citations) is currently included in the IPNI rather than the Plant List.[9]
