Plants of the World Online Portal (POWOP) ( Families

COVERCOVER STORY STORY Plants of the PlantsWorld of the Diverse,World Fascinating…and Threatened Anurag Dhyani The theme of theThe theme of the World World Wildlife Wildlife Day Day 2020, 2020, “Sustaining “Sustaining all alllife life on on earth”, earth”, centrescentres attention attention on on all wild animal all wild animal and and plant plant species species as asa component a component of ofbiodiversity. biodiversity. Here’s Here’s a look a look at athow how plant plant species species around around the the world world are are collated,collated, documented, documented, and and assessed assessed to toreveal reveal their their current current status status and and showshow us ushow how different different species species of ofplants plants are are faring. faring. 18 | Science Reporter | March 2020 COVER STORY OW many plant species are known to science? How many new plant species are discovered annually? How Hmany plant species have documented use? How many plants are threatened with the risk of extinction and what are the global threats to them? These are questions that often pop into our heads. The State of the World’s Plants, a document published by the Royal Botanic Garden (RBG), Kew has begun to provide some answers (the report can be accessed for free online at https://stateoftheworldsplants.com). The first report was published in 2016 to collate the current information about plants status in the world and updated in 2017. The document collates the latest data from reviewed published literature and global databases to show us how plants are faring and reveals their current status. It also highlights important and fascinating research, emerging issues and gaps in our knowledge. Plants of the PlantsWorld of the Diverse,World Fascinating…and Threatened Anurag Dhyani The most comprehensive list of all plant names is available on The Plant List, created by the collaboration of Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden. The How Many Plant Species are Known to Science? resource was launched in 2010 and provides accepted scientific names and synonyms of all known vascular plants (flowering An estimated 3,91,000 vascular plant species are known to plants, conifers, ferns and allies) and bryophytes (mosses and science, of which 3,69,000 are flowering plants (others are liverworts). ferns and mosses). Among these, the number of tree species is 60,065. Interestingly, almost half (45%) of these tree species For a comprehensive list of tree species and their country- are reported in 10 families of the world. level distribution, a new tool GlobalTreeSearch (www.bgci. org/globaltreesearch) has been developed by Botanic Gardens Leguminosae (5,405 species), Rubiaceae (4,827 species) Conservation International. In addition, a recent development and Myrtaceae (4,330 species) are the three leading tree-rich is the Plants of the World Online Portal (POWOP) (http:// families. Brazil (8,715), Colombia (5,776) and Indonesia The theme of the World Wildlife Day 2020, “Sustaining all life on earth”, www.plantsoftheworldonline.org), by RBG, Kew. It provides (5,142) are the top three countries with the most tree species. centres attention on all wild animal and plant species as a component information on plant identification, its distribution, uses, traits, of biodiversity. Here’s a look at how plant species around the world are For students and researchers, there are three plant name threat status and molecular phylogenies. It provides a single collated, documented, and assessed to reveal their current status and resources available on the internet i.e., (1) The International entry point to enable the dissemination of plant information at Plant Name Index (http://www.ipni.org), (2) the World levels accessible to all (collating data in one place from the show us how different species of plants are faring. Checklist of Selected Plant Families (http://apps.kew.org/ other plant databases). Young plant enthusiasts can always wcsp/) and (3) The Plant List (http://www.theplantlist.org/). update themselves through these websites. March 2020 | Science Reporter | 19 Species-rich Families at an altitude of 1,500 metre above sea level, in South East Brazil. The species photograph was posted by a young The recent report of Kew published this year revealed botanist Reginaldo Vasconcelos in 2013, further identified interesting information about how many plant families are and published by Paulo Gonella with the title “Drosera known to science. In 1883, there were 197 plant families; after magnifica (Droseraceae): the largest new world sundew, 98 years, in 1981, this number increased to 389. Further with discovered on Facebook” in the scientific journal Phytotaxa the introduction of molecular techniques in 1998 similarities in 2015. Interestingly this is one of the three largest species and difference became more robust and clear. As per the latest of Drosera. update, there are 452 vascular plant families around the world identified by scientists. Among them, the five largest families are Asteraceae, Fabaceae, Orchidaceae, Poaceae, Rubiaceae. Asteraceae, commonly known as daisy family is on the top with 32,581 species. The second position is held by Orchidaceae (Orchids) with 28,237 followed by Fabaceae (Legumes) (20,856), Rubiaceae (Coffees and Bedstraws) (13,686), Poaceae (Grasses) (11,434). Number of Vascular Plants 391,000 Number of Flowering Plants 369,000 Number of Tree species 60,065 New Plant species 1,730 discovered, 2016 New species discovered in 186 India, 2016 By Paulo Gonella - own work CC BY-SA BO, Useful plant species https://commorswikimedia.org/w/indexphp?curid=41949265 31,128 (currently documented) Plant Discoveries in India Plant species used for 28,187 medicine, 2016 The Botanical Survey of India (BSI) has been providing the scientific basis for conservation and sustainable utilisation of Important Plant Areas 1771 plants through survey, inventory, documentation, taxonomic research and by creating awareness since its inception 1890. Vascular Plant Families 452 Botanical Survey of India has discovered 1 new family, 41 new Invasive species 6075 genera, 1,465 new species, subspecies and varieties since 1954. In addition, 186 new species were discovered by Where and How do we Find New Species? Indian scientists during 2016. Among these discoveries, spermatophytes or seed plant (plants which produce seeds) Scientists discover new species of herbs, shrubs, trees and have a big share with 37 per cent of total discoveries. This lower plants every year. These species may be a food crop, group is followed by fungi (20%), lichen (11%) algae (9%) of medicinal use, may provide timber or other social use. In and bryophytes (7%). 2015, the number of new vascular plant species discovered was 2,034; in 2016 this count was 1,730. On average, each year Further, among different states of India, maximum seed about 2,000 species are discovered. These are reported mainly plant species were discovered and reported from Kerala from tropical South America, tropical Asia, continental Africa (35), followed by Arunachal Pradesh (18), Tamil Nadu (17), and Madagascar. Brazil (2,220), Australia (1,648) and China Maharashtra (10), Sikkim (6). The minimum discoveries with (1,597) are the top three source countries for the identification one plant species reported were from Manipur, Nagaland, Rajasthan and Telangana. In Andaman and Nicobar Islands of new species of vascular plants between 2006 and 2015. and West Bengal, only four discoveries were reported. Further The plant discoveries are mostly reported during field low number of species discoveries was reported from Andhra explorations, re-examining of a species with herbarium record Pradesh, Gujarat, Meghalaya, Uttarakhand (each 3), and and of late through social media websites. Here is an interesting Odisha (2) (Source: Plant Discoveries 2016, Botanical Survey example. The first carnivorous plant species discovered through of India). Discovery of more plant species in a state may be Facebook is Drosera magnifica (common name Magnificent linked to the high biodiversity or insufficient explorations in Sundew). The species is endemic to Pico Padre Angelo found the region. 20 | Science Reporter | March 2020 species have documented use with one or multiple uses. Interestingly among them the largest number of plant species with documented use are for medicinal purposes (17,810), followed by plants used in textile and building materials (11,365), environmental issues (8,140), human food (5,538), animal food (3,649), gene resource (5,338), poison (2,503), fuel (1,621), social use (1,382) and invertebrate food (683) (Source: The State of World’s Plants, RBG, Kew 2016). Medicinal plants are plants that possess special properties that qualify them as an article of drug and therapeutic agents, and are used for medicinal purposes. The number of plant species used for medicine was recorded as 17,810 in 2015. Following a thorough analysis of documented medicinal uses, The State of the World’s Plants 2017 reported 28,187 plant species currently recorded as being of medicinal use. In India, among 17000-18000 species of flowering plants, 7263 are medicinal plant species. In our traditional system of medicine, Ayurveda has been reported to use 2559 medicinal plants, followed by Siddha (2267), Unani (1049), Homeopathy (460) and Sowa-rigpa (671). Plant Discoveres 2016, Botanical Survey of India Medicinal plants have become a source of new drug development globally because they contain specific compounds, In one of the largest angiosperm genera Euphorbia, a new mainly alkaloids and terpenoids, that are known to be species has been discovered – Euphorbia gokakensis – from the biologically active or because of known traditional medicinal Belgaum district of Karnataka. It is a dwarf succulent perennial uses. Some plant families have a significantly higher proportion forming a compact cushion up to 0.5 m tall. The species grows of medicinal plant species, for example, Fabaceae (2334), in a rocky habitat. Lamiaceae (1059), Euphorbiaceae (863), Apocynaceae (858), Malvaceae (621), Apiaceae (586), Ranunculaceae (434).

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