Massive Online Plant Database Unveiled
Researchers from the US and UK unveiled a new online database of plant names on Wednesday in what they are calling an attempt to help global conservation, medicinal, and agricultural efforts.
The Plant List, as it is known, is a collaborative effort by workers at London’s Kew Gardens and the Missouri Botanical Garden, located in St. Louis. It is said to be the most comprehensive list of botanical life ever assembled, featuring the names of 1.25 million plants "ranging from essential food crops such as wheat, rice and corn to garden roses and exotic jungle ferns," according to AFP reports.
The goal of the list, according to what researchers told the French news agency on Wednesday, is to help clarify the taxonomy of various plants–helping scientists better understand exactly which species of plant goes by which name.
"Without accurate names, understanding and communication about global plant life would descend into inefficient chaos, costing vast sums of money and threatening lives in the case of plants used for food or medicine," officials from the Royal Botanic Gardens (RBG), the organization that oversees the Kew Gardens, told AFP in an interview.
"Imagine trying to find everything that’s ever been published about a plant: Which chemicals are in it, whether it’s poisonous or not, where is it found," added Alan Paton of Kew Gardens in a separate interview with Raphael G. Satter of the Associated Press (AP). "To find that information, you need to know all of the different scientific names that have been used for it."
According to the website itself, The Plant List currently includes more than 1.04 million different scientific names for various plant species. Of those, only 28.7% or 298,900 are accepted species names, while 45.9% or 477,601 are synonyms and more than a quarter (263,925) are considered ‘unresolved,’ meaning there was not enough information available to determine which of the other two categories a species name should be placed into.
In total, The Plant List contains entries from 620 plant families and 16,167 plant genera, according to its homepage. Those entries include various types of flowering plants, conifers and other angiosperms, ferns, and mosses and liverworts.
Peter Wyse Jackson, president of the Missouri Botanical Garden, told AFP that the list was "a major step forward" in terms of conservation efforts, though the organizers are quick to point out that The Plant List is a work in progress and will need revision going forward.
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