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World Flora Online is an Internet-based
compendium A compendium (plural: compendia or compendiums) is a comprehensive collection of information and analysis pertaining to a body of knowledge. A compendium may concisely summarize a larger work. In most cases, the body of knowledge will concern a s ...
of the world's plant species.


Description

The World Flora Online (WFO) is an
open-access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...
database, launched In October 2012 as a follow-up project to
The Plant List The Plant List was a list of botanical names of species of plants created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the Missouri Botanical Garden and launched in 2010. It was intended to be a comprehensive record of all known names of plant species ...
, with the aim of publishing an online
flora Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring ( indigenous) native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms '' gut flora'' or '' skin flora''. ...
of all known plants by 2020. It is a project of the
United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), known informally as the Biodiversity Convention, is a multilateral treaty. The Convention has three main goals: the conservation of biological diversity (or biodiversity); the sustainable use of its ...
, 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 2011–2020 Global 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. WFO was conceived in 2012 by an initial group of four institutions; the
Missouri Botanical Garden The Missouri Botanical Garden is a botanical garden located at 4344 Shaw Boulevard in St. Louis, Missouri. It is also known informally as Shaw's Garden for founder and philanthropist Henry Shaw. Its herbarium, with more than 6.6 million ...
, the
New York Botanical Garden The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) is a botanical garden at Bronx Park in the Bronx, New York City. Established in 1891, it is located on a site that contains a landscape with over one million living plants; the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, ...
, the
Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) is a scientific centre for the study of plants, their diversity and conservation, as well as a popular tourist attraction. Founded in 1670 as a physic garden to grow medicinal plants, today it occupies ...
and the
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. An internationally important botanical research and education institution, it employs 1,100 ...
. In all, 36 institutions are involved in the production.


References


Bibliography

* * * *, ''see also''
The Plant List The Plant List was a list of botanical names of species of plants created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the Missouri Botanical Garden and launched in 2010. It was intended to be a comprehensive record of all known names of plant species ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:World Flora Online . Databases in the United Kingdom Databases in the United States Missouri Botanical Garden Online botany databases Online taxonomy databases Plant taxonomy Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew