The Flora of China is an international collaborative project to publish a comprehensive catalog of all Chinese wild plants, with full descriptions of 31,500 species and illustrations of about 20,000 species. The project will last 25 years, from 1988 to 2013, and will produce 24 volumes of text and 24 of illustrations, plus an introductory volume. All of this published information is freely available online. The first volume of text appeared in 1994 and, by the end of 2009, 17 volumes of text and 16 of illustrations had been published with a further text volume in press.

The Flora is jointly published by the Missouri Botanical Garden Press (St. Louis) and Science Press (Beijing). The Missouri Botanical Garden is the non-Chinese coordination center. Other centers in the West are at the Smithsonian Institution; the California Academy of Sciences; the Harvard University Herbaria; the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh; the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; and the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris.

The 31,500 species of Chinese vascular plants represents about ten percent of the world’s total. It compares with some 19,500 in the U.S. and Canada combined and about 12,500 in Europe. Information about Chinese plants is essential to the study of the evolution of North American and European plants, because several groups that were widespread in the northern temperate zone in prehistoric times now survive only in China.

Chinese plants are also important to the world because of their medicinal value. For thousands of years, the Chinese have used plants very extensively for medicinal purposes. It is estimated that more than 5,000 Chinese species are actively traded and used medically. The properties of these plants as sources of drugs, waxes, oils, and other useful products are of considerable scientific interest. The Flora of China will provide a ready means of locating, understanding, and utilizing these plants.

During the course of working on the Flora of China, consistent efforts are made to identify rare, vulnerable and endangered species of Chinese plants. This baseline taxonomic inventory will make it possible to locate and identify these species, evaluate threats to them, and set in place the appropriate conservation measures. By making this information available, the Flora will help enlist the participation of the international community in China’s effort to preserve its own botanical diversity.

The Flora of China marks a new stage in the exchange of scientific information between China and the United States. The project is supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, as well as the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the highest political/scientific body in China, and involves the four most important botanical centers in China: the Institute of Botany, Beijing; the Kunming Institute of Botany; the South China Botanical Garden, Guangzhou; and the Jiangsu Institute of Botany, Nanjing. It is also supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and is listed as a key project of the five-year plan of that Foundation.

The Missouri Botanical Garden's mission is "to discover and share knowledge about plants and their environment in order to preserve and enrich life." Today, 151 years after opening, the Missouri Botanical Garden is a National Historic Landmark and a center for science and conservation, education and horticultural display.

3/2010