In the alpine Himalayas, Jan Salick, a senior curator at the Missouri Botanical Garden, and a research team member study plants affected by climate change. Photo by Suresh Ghimire. Courtesy Missouri Botanical Garden.
A major announcement comes today from four of the world’s leading botanical gardens: By 2020, they plan to launch what is called the World Flora, an online database to compile information on 400,000 plant species worldwide. The collaborators are the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, the New York Botanical Garden, and the Missouri Botanical Garden. When it’s up and running, the World Flora will fulfill one major goal of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation, which was articulated by the United Nations’ Convention on Biological Diversity in 2002 “to halt the continuing loss of plant biodiversity around the globe.” It’s an extremely exciting prospect. Read the full details here.
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