The ''flora'' consists of many unique varieties of tropical plants. Blessed with a

tropical The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere at S. The tropics are also referred to ...

climate and roughly 17,000 islands,

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

is the nation with the second highest

biodiversity Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic (''genetic variability''), species (''species diversity''), and ecosystem (''ecosystem diversity'') l ...

in the world. The flora of Ind reflects an intermingling of

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

n and unique, Indonesian lineages. This is due to the geography of Indonesia, located between the aforementioned continents. The archipelago consists of a variety of regions, from the

tropical rain forest Tropical rainforests are rainforests that occur in areas of tropical rainforest climate in which there is no dry season – all months have an average precipitation of at least 60 mm – and may also be referred to as ''lowland equatori ...

s of the northern lowlands and the seasonal forests of the southern lowlands through the hill and mountain vegetation, to subalpine shrub vegetation. With the second longest coastline in the world, Indonesia also has many swamps and other varieties of coastal vegetation. Combined, these all give rise to a huge floral biodiversity. There are about 28,000 species of flowering plants documented in Indonesia, including 2500

orchid Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Along with the Asteraceae, they are one of the two largest families of flowering ...

s, 122 species of

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, bu ...

, over 350 species of

rattan Rattan, also spelled ratan, is the name for roughly 600 species of Old World climbing palms belonging to subfamily Calamoideae. The greatest diversity of rattan palm species and genera are in the closed-canopy old-growth tropical forests of ...

and 400 species of '' Dipterocarpus'', including ebony,

sandalwood Sandalwood is a class of woods from trees in the genus ''Santalum''. The woods are heavy, yellow, and fine-grained, and, unlike many other aromatic woods, they retain their fragrance for decades. Sandalwood oil is extracted from the woods for us ...

and

teakwood Teak (''Tectona grandis'') is a tropical hardwood tree species in the family Lamiaceae. It is a large, deciduous tree that occurs in mixed hardwood forests. ''Tectona grandis'' has small, fragrant white flowers arranged in dense clusters (panicl ...

. Indonesia is also home to some unusual species of carnivorous plants. One exceptional species is known as ''

Rafflesia arnoldi ''Rafflesia arnoldii'', the corpse flower or giant padma, is a species of flowering plant in the parasitic genus ''Rafflesia''. It is noted for producing the largest individual flower on Earth. It has a strong and unpleasant odor of decaying f ...

'', named after

Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles (5 July 1781 – 5 July 1826) was a British statesman who served as the Lieutenant-Governor of the Dutch East Indies between 1811 and 1816, and Lieutenant-Governor of Bencoolen between 1818 and 1824. He is ...

and Dr.

Thomas Arnold Thomas Arnold (13 June 1795 – 12 June 1842) was an English educator and historian. He was an early supporter of the Broad Church Anglican movement. As headmaster of Rugby School from 1828 to 1841, he introduced several reforms that were wide ...

, who discovered the flower in the depths of Bengkulu, southwest

Sumatra Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 (182,812 mi.2), not including adjacent i ...

. This parasitic plant has the largest flower of any plant, does not produce leaves and grows only on one species of

liana A liana is a long- stemmed, woody vine that is rooted in the soil at ground level and uses trees, as well as other means of vertical support, to climb up to the canopy in search of direct sunlight. The word ''liana'' does not refer to a ta ...

on the rainforest floor. Another unusual plant is ''

Amorphophallus titanum ''Amorphophallus'' (from Ancient Greek , "without form, misshapen" + ''phallos'', "penis", referring to the shape of the prominent spadix) is a large genus of some 200 tropical and subtropical tuberous herbaceous plants from the ''Arum'' family ...

'' from

. Numerous species of insect trapping

pitcher plant Pitcher plants are several different carnivorous plants which have modified leaves known as pitfall traps—a prey-trapping mechanism featuring a deep cavity filled with digestive liquid. The traps of what are considered to be "true" pitcher p ...

s (''

Nepenthes ''Nepenthes'' () is a genus of carnivorous plants, also known as tropical pitcher plants, or monkey cups, in the monotypic family Nepenthaceae. The genus includes about 170 species, and numerous natural and many cultivated hybrids. They are mos ...

'' spp.) can also be found in

Borneo Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and eas ...

, and other islands of the

Indonesian archipelago The islands of Indonesia, also known as the Indonesian Archipelago ( id, Kepulauan Indonesia) or Nusantara, may refer either to the islands comprising the country of Indonesia or to the geographical groups which include its islands. History ...

. There are a staggering 6000 traditional

medicinal plants Medicinal plants, also called medicinal herbs, have been discovered and used in traditional medicine practices since prehistoric times. Plants synthesize hundreds of chemical compounds for various functions, including defense and protection ag ...

used as

Jamu Jamu ( Van Ophuijsen Spelling: Djamoe; Javanese: ) is a traditional medicine from Indonesia. It is predominantly a herbal medicine made from natural materials, such as roots, bark, flowers, seeds, leaves and fruits. Materials acquired from a ...

Origins of Indonesian Flora

The origin of flora in Indonesia is a result of geographical and geological events involving the Asian and

Australasia Australasia is a region that comprises Australia, New Zealand and some neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term is used in a number of different contexts, including geopolitically, physiogeographically, philologically, and ecologica ...

n continents. The present island of

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea). It is a simplified version of ...

was connected with the Australian continent, forming a

supercontinent In geology, a supercontinent is the assembly of most or all of Earth's continent, continental blocks or cratons to form a single large landmass. However, some geologists use a different definition, "a grouping of formerly dispersed continents", ...

called

Gondwana Gondwana () was a large landmass, often referred to as a supercontinent, that formed during the late Neoproterozoic (about 550 million years ago) and began to break up during the Jurassic period (about 180 million years ago). The final stages ...

. This supercontinent began to break up 140 million years ago, and the New Guinea region moved towards the

equator The equator is a circle of latitude, about in circumference, that divides Earth into the Northern and Southern hemispheres. It is an imaginary line located at 0 degrees latitude, halfway between the North and South poles. The term can als ...

. As a result, animals from New Guinea travelled to the Australian continent and vice versa, resulting in large amounts of speciation in the many new ecosystems. This exchange continued to occur until the two landmasses separated completely. Asian lineages in Indonesia are the result of the reformation of the

Laurasia Laurasia () was the more northern of two large landmasses that formed part of the Pangaea supercontinent from around ( Mya), the other being Gondwana. It separated from Gondwana (beginning in the late Triassic period) during the breakup of Pan ...

supercontinent, which existed after the break-up of

Rodinia Rodinia (from the Russian родина, ''rodina'', meaning "motherland, birthplace") was a Mesoproterozoic and Neoproterozoic supercontinent that assembled 1.26–0.90 billion years ago and broke up 750–633 million years ago. were probably ...

around 1 billion years ago. Around 200 million years ago, the Laurasian supercontinent split completely, forming the continents of

Laurentia Laurentia or the North American Craton is a large continental craton that forms the ancient geological core of North America. Many times in its past, Laurentia has been a separate continent, as it is now in the form of North America, although ...

(now

the Americas The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America, North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. ...

) and

Eurasia Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelago a ...

. Despite this separation, the mainland of the Eurasian continent was not separated completely from the Indonesian

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands, or sometimes a sea containing a small number of scattered islands. Examples of archipelagos include: the Indonesian Archi ...

. As a result, organisms from the Eurasian mainland could colonize the archipelago; and, under different environmental pressures, new species diverged. In the nineteenth century,

Alfred Russel Wallace Alfred Russel Wallace (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator. He is best known for independently conceiving the theory of evolution through natural se ...

proposed the idea of the

Wallace Line The Wallace Line or Wallace's Line is a faunal boundary line drawn in 1859 by the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace and named by English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley that separates the biogeographical realms of Asia and Wallacea, a tran ...

, which is a line that divides Indonesian archipelago into two regions, the Asian biogeographical region (Sundaland) and the Australasian biogeographical Region (Wallacea). The line runs through the

Indonesian Archipelago The islands of Indonesia, also known as the Indonesian Archipelago ( id, Kepulauan Indonesia) or Nusantara, may refer either to the islands comprising the country of Indonesia or to the geographical groups which include its islands. History ...

, between

and

Sulawesi Sulawesi (), also known as Celebes (), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the world's eleventh-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Mindanao and the Sulu Ar ...

(Celebes); and between

Bali Bali () is a province of Indonesia and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands. East of Java and west of Lombok, the province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller neighbouring islands, notably Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan, and Nu ...

and

Lombok Lombok is an island in West Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia. It forms part of the chain of the Lesser Sunda Islands, with the Lombok Strait separating it from Bali to the west and the Alas Strait between it and Sumbawa to the east. It is rou ...

. The Indonesian archipelago, home of the

Spice Islands A spice is a seed, fruit, root, bark, or other plant substance primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices are distinguished from herbs, which are the leaves, flowers, or stems of plants used for flavoring or as a garnish. Spices ar ...

, has been known since ancient times as a source of spices, such as

cloves Cloves are the aromatic flower buds of a tree in the family Myrtaceae, ''Syzygium aromaticum'' (). They are native to the Maluku Islands (or Moluccas) in Indonesia, and are commonly used as a spice, flavoring or fragrance in consumer products, s ...

nutmeg Nutmeg is the seed or ground spice of several species of the genus ''Myristica''. ''Myristica fragrans'' (fragrant nutmeg or true nutmeg) is a dark-leaved evergreen tree cultivated for two spices derived from its fruit: nutmeg, from its seed, an ...

, and

black pepper Black pepper (''Piper nigrum'') is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, known as a peppercorn, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit is a drupe (stonefruit) which is about in diame ...

. The

Maluku Islands The Maluku Islands (; Indonesian: ''Kepulauan Maluku'') or the Moluccas () are an archipelago in the east of Indonesia. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. Geographically they are located eas ...

were, until the late eighteenth century, the only source of many economically significant spices. In the colonial era, cloves and nutmeg were the most valuable commodities behind gold and silver for European colonists. During the colonial era in Indonesia, the Dutch also created many plantations of

coffee Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulant, stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world. S ...

tea Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of '' Camellia sinensis'', an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which probably originated in the borderlands of southwestern China and northe ...

and

sugar cane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fibrous stalks t ...

, mostly in

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

. During the history of Indonesia, many foreign plants from

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, China, and Europe have been introduced to the archipelago. Plant species such as tea, coffee and

rubber tree ''Hevea brasiliensis'', the Pará rubber tree, ''sharinga'' tree, seringueira, or most commonly, rubber tree or rubber plant, is a flowering plant belonging to the spurge family Euphorbiaceae originally native to the Amazon basin, but is now pa ...

have become established.

Vegetation Types

Indonesia's terrestrial flora can be divided into several

vegetation Vegetation is an assemblage of plant species and the ground cover they provide. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular taxa, life forms, structure, spatial extent, or any other specific botanical or geographic character ...

groups. The most important factor is rainfall, followed by temperature, both of which affect the availability of water. The distribution of Indonesian flora is dominated by broadleaf evergreen forests. This is mostly seen in the regions where population density is still relatively low, such as Sumatra, Borneo, Sulawesi and West Papua. On Java and Bali the vegetation is dominated by cultivated plants. Swamp forests,

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline water, saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evoluti ...

, and ''

Nypa fruticans ''Nypa fruticans'', commonly known as the nipa palm (or simply nipa, from ms, nipah) or mangrove palm, is a species of palm native to the coastlines and estuarine habitats of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the only palm considered adapte ...

'' forests are found along the coast. On the mountainous regions, subalpine and alpine vegetation is dominant. In the lesser Sunda islands, where rainfall is not as plentiful as in other parts of Indonesia, grasslands are regularly seen.

Biodiversity

According to the

Conservation International Conservation International (CI) is an American nonprofit environmental organization headquartered in Crystal City, Arlington, Virginia. CI's work focuses on science, policy and partnership with businesses, governments and communities. The organ ...

, there are two biodiversity regions in Indonesia:

Wallacea Wallacea is a biogeographical designation for a group of mainly Indonesian islands separated by deep-water straits from the Asian and Australian continental shelves. Wallacea includes Sulawesi, the largest island in the group, as well as Lo ...

and

Sundaland Sundaland (also called Sundaica or the Sundaic region) is a biogeographical region of South-eastern Asia corresponding to a larger landmass that was exposed throughout the last 2.6 million years during periods when sea levels were lower. It ...

. The provinces of West Papua and Papua are also extremely biodiverse.

Lorentz National Park Lorentz National Park is a national park located in Central Papua, Indonesia, in the southwest of western New Guinea. With an area of 25,056 km2 (9,674 mi2), it is the largest national park in Southeast Asia. In 1999 Lorentz was declare ...

, located in the province of Papua, was declared a

World Heritage Site A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...

in 1999 by

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

Sundaland

Sundaland, which is located on the west part of the

n archipelago, holds about 25,000 different species of plants. 15,000 of them are endemic to this region and cannot be found anywhere else.

Scyphostegiaceae ''Scyphostegia borneensis'' is a species of shrub or small tree endemic to Borneo. This unusual plant is the only species in the genus ''Scyphostegia''. In many taxonomic classifications the genus was placed in its own family, the Scyphostegiacea ...

is a plant family represented by a single species, '' Scyphostegia borneensis'', which is endemic to

. Another 155 species of '' Dipterocarpus'' are endemic to this island. Borneo also has more than 2,000 species of orchids. The forests in

include more than 100 species of ''Dipterocarpus'', nearly a dozen of them are endemic to this island. The island of

has about 270 endemic

species. At least 117 plant genera are endemic to this biodiversity hotspot. 59 of them are found in Borneo and 17 in Sumatra. Unique plants from this region are similar to ones from the Asian continent, examples include ''

Rafflesia arnoldii ''Rafflesia arnoldii'', the corpse flower or giant padma, is a species of flowering plant in the parasitic genus ''Rafflesia''. It is noted for producing the largest individual flower on Earth. It has a strong and unpleasant odor of decaying f ...

'',

s and

Javanese Edelweiss ''Anaphalis javanica'', the Javanese edelweiss, is a flowering plant species endemic to Indonesia. They are found mostly in mountainous regions of Java, southern Sumatra, southern Sulawesi and Lombok. Although a mature plant can reach eight metr ...

(''

Anaphalis javanica ''Anaphalis javanica'', the Javanese edelweiss, is a flowering plant species endemic to Indonesia. They are found mostly in mountainous regions of Java, southern Sumatra, southern Sulawesi and Lombok. Although a mature plant can reach eight metr ...

'') as examples. Starr 060703-8292 Eucalyptus deglupta

Wallacea

It is

estimated Estimation (or estimating) is the process of finding an estimate or approximation, which is a value that is usable for some purpose even if input data may be incomplete, uncertain, or unstable. The value is nonetheless usable because it is der ...

that there are over 10,000 species of plants in this biodiversity hotspot region. About 1,200 species and 12 genera are endemic. The island of

has about 500 endemic plant species. The islands of

Molucca The Maluku Islands (; Indonesian: ''Kepulauan Maluku'') or the Moluccas () are an archipelago in the east of Indonesia. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. Geographically they are located ...

have about 300 endemic plant species and the

Lesser Sunda Islands The Lesser Sunda Islands or nowadays known as Nusa Tenggara Islands ( id, Kepulauan Nusa Tenggara, formerly ) are an archipelago in Maritime Southeast Asia, north of Australia. Together with the Greater Sunda Islands to the west they make up t ...

are home to at least 110 endemic plant species. Little is known about the flora of this region. Three of these unique species, ''

Agathis ''Agathis'', commonly known as kauri or dammara, is a genus of 22 species of evergreen tree. The genus is part of the ancient conifer family Araucariaceae, a group once widespread during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, but now largely re ...

'', ''

Pterocarpus indicus ''Pterocarpus indicus'' (commonly known as Amboyna wood, Malay padauk, Papua New Guinea rosewood, Philippine mahogany, Andaman redwood, Burmese rosewood, narra and asana in the Philippines, angsana, or Pashu padauk) is a species of ''Pterocarpus ...

'' and '' Eucalyptus deglupta'', are examples.

Papua Barat and Papua

The flora of this region is influenced by the

n continent. This region contains a wide array of environments, from snow-capped mountains, lowland wetlands, to tropical marine environment. This geographical variation results in a large diversity of plant species. In 2020, a group of 99 researchers published a checklist of the flora of

, presenting a total number of 13,634 species that occur on the island with 7,616 species occurring in the Indonesian part, the Papua Barat and Papua Provinces. An astonishing 60-90% of them may be endemic to New Guinea and according to recent estimation the endemic plants encompasses 68% of the total known species. This region has been poorly explored so the actual number of endemic species is unknown.

Indonesia's National Flowers

'' Melati'' (''Jasminum sambac''), a small white flower with a sweet fragrance, is the national flower of Indonesia, together with ''Anggrek Bulan'' (''

Phalaenopsis amabilis ''Phalaenopsis amabilis'', commonly known as the moon orchid or moth orchid in India and as in Indonesia, is a species of flowering plant in the orchid family Orchidaceae. It is native to the Indonesia and Australia, and widely cultivated as a ...

'') and ''Padma Raksasa Rafflesia'' (''

''). All three were chosen on

World Environment Day World Environment Day (WED) is celebrated annually on 5 June and encourages awareness and action for the protection of the environment. It is supported by many non-governmental organizations, businesses, government entities, and represents the ...

on 5 June 1990 by President

Soeharto Suharto (; ; 8 June 1921 – 27 January 2008) was an Indonesian army officer and politician, who served as the second and the longest serving president of Indonesia. Widely regarded as a military dictator by international observers, Suharto ...

. On another occasion ''Bunga Bangkai'' (''

Titan arum Titan most often refers to: * Titan (moon), the largest moon of Saturn * Titans, a race of deities in Greek mythology Titan or Titans may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional entities Fictional locations * Titan in fiction, fictiona ...

'') was also added as ''puspa langka'' together with Rafflesia. Each individual province also has its own floral emblems.

National Love Flora and Fauna Day

To build interest and awareness for Indonesian flora and fauna, the government declared the 5th of November as National Love Flora and Fauna Day. Annually there are postage stamps released in honor of this holiday. They depict plants and animals that are endemic or unique to a specific region or a province of Indonesia.

Current Issues

Deforestation Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. The most concentrated d ...

is a major problem in Indonesia. The current rate is a loss of 2 million hectares per year. As a highly populous, developing country that is

industrializing Industrialisation ( alternatively spelled industrialization) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive re-organisation of an econo ...

rapidly, the need of natural resources and land is steadily increasing. Illegally created

wildfires A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identif ...

cause heavy

smog Smog, or smoke fog, is a type of intense air pollution. The word "smog" was coined in the early 20th century, and is a portmanteau of the words ''smoke'' and '' fog'' to refer to smoky fog due to its opacity, and odor. The word was then inte ...

around Indonesia's neighbouring countries. The widespread deforestation and other environmental destruction in Indonesia has often been described by academics as an ecocide. According to the Indonesian department of forestry, there are currently 174 plants endemic to Indonesia listed as endangered species.

References

External links

ASEAN Regional Centre for Biodiversity Conservation

The Biodiversity hotspots
*
PIKA Database of endemic Flora and Fauna in Indonesia

An article about Indonesian vegetationDigital Flora of Indonesia
{{DEFAULTSORT:Flora Of Indonesia