Today the Missouri Botanical Garden and the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew announce the online publication of The Plant List, the world’s first database of all land plant species. The Plant List includes all accepted botanical names and their synonyms, as well as a number of names whose status as accepted or synonym is unresolved in the current literature.
“If we want to conserve plants, we need to know what species there are,” said Peter Wyse Jackson, president of the Missouri Botanical Garden. “We all need to work from the same page.”
Conservation today is a worldwide undertaking. Fully one-fourth of existing botanical species are in danger of extinction. The preservation of biological diversity demands shared priorities.
Information technologists and scientists at the botanical gardens in St. Louis and London worked together to develop innovative computer strategies to make the database comprehensive and available in a timely manner. The plant list is available to anyone in the world with access to a computer.