 | |
Type of site | Encyclopedia |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Created by | Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew andMissouri Botanical Garden |
| URL | about |
| Launched | October 2012 |
| Current status | Active |
World Flora Online is an Internet-basedcompendium of the world'splant species.
The World Flora Online (WFO) is anopen-access database, launched in October 2012 as a follow-up project toThe Plant List, with the aim of publishing an onlineflora of all known plants by 2020.[1] It is a project of theUnited Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, with goal of halting the loss of plant species worldwide by 2020. It is developed by a collaborative group of institutions around the world in response to the 2011–2020Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC)'s updated Target 1: to produce "an online flora of all known plants".
An accessible flora of all known plant species was considered a fundamental requirement for plant conservation. It provides a baseline for the achievement and monitoring of other targets of the strategy. The previous target of GSPC was achieved in 2010 with The Plant List.[2][3] WFO 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.[4] In all, 36 institutions are involved in the production.[3]
World Flora Online developed WFO's Plant List (wfoplantlist.org) to replace the traditional Plant List v.1.1 (plantlist.org).[5] In 2024,Pl@ntNet joined the WFO consortium.[6]