Hello,

Can someone please tell me how many species of plants are estimated to
be living today?

Can that statistic be further broken down, either by phylum or by
geography (how many are native to each continent, for example)?

I'm sure these questions are simple to some of you, but I'm not a
plant expert.

Thank you very much,

Ted Shoemaker

Did you do a google search to find a website that already has this info on
it?

You are wrong in you assumption. The answer is not a simple one at all. You
request is a bit unreasonable if you question is just a rhetorical one.

Do you need this info for your biology class?


Ted Shoemaker wrote in message
om...
Hello,

Can someone please tell me how many species of plants are estimated to
be living today?

Can that statistic be further broken down, either by phylum or by
geography (how many are native to each continent, for example)?

I'm sure these questions are simple to some of you, but I'm not a
plant expert.

Thank you very much,

Ted Shoemaker

In article , Ted
Shoemaker writes

Can someone please tell me how many species of plants are estimated to
be living today?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2082570.stm

Says over 400,000 *known* species. On the one hand, some revisions of
genera are reducing the number of species in those genera (others
aren't, e.g. IIRC, the recent revision of Sarcolaenaceae in Adansonia)
as species are reduced to synonymy. On the other hand, new species are
being discovered at an appreciable rate.

Angiosperms are the most diverse of plants; the other divisions have
well under 100,000 species between them. (28,000 on a site giving
235,000 for angiosperms.)

http://mentor.lscf.ucsb.edu/course/w...lecture_12.pdf

I'm not counting green algae (or other algae, or fungi, or
cyanobacteria) as plants.

Can that statistic be further broken down, either by phylum or by
geography (how many are native to each continent, for example)?


The Angiosperm Phylogeny Website has estimated species counts for each
family.

http://www.mobot.org/MOBOT/Research/APweb/welcome.html
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley

(Ted Shoemaker) wrote:

Can someone please tell me how many species of plants are estimated to
be living today?

270 000 (estimated by WCMC)


Can that statistic be further broken down, either by phylum or by
geography (how many are native to each continent, for example)?

I'm sure these questions are simple to some of you, but I'm not a
plant expert.

You may look for this book:

Brian Groombridge and Martin D. Jenkins:
World Atlas of Biodiversity
UNEP-WCMC
ISBN 0-520-23668-8
University of California Press

http://www.unep-wcmc.org/

Ted Shoemaker writes
Can someone please tell me how many species of plants are estimated to
be living today?

Stewart Robert Hinsley schreef

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2082570.stm

Says over 400,000 *known* species. On the one hand, some revisions of
genera are reducing the number of species in those genera (others
aren't, e.g. IIRC, the recent revision of Sarcolaenaceae in Adansonia)
as species are reduced to synonymy. On the other hand, new species are
being discovered at an appreciable rate.

Angiosperms are the most diverse of plants; the other divisions have
well under 100,000 species between them. (28,000 on a site giving
235,000 for angiosperms.)

http://mentor.lscf.ucsb.edu/course/w...lecture_12.pdf

I'm not counting green algae (or other algae, or fungi, or
cyanobacteria) as plants.

+ + +
Quite. There is no definitive figure
Taxon 50: 1089. 2001, Govaerts: 422,127 known spp of seed plants
Taxon 51: 511. 2001, Thorne: 258,650 known spp of seed plants

Thorne has added up figures, while Govaerts was using other forms of math.

Taxon 52: 101-104. 2002, Scotland & Wortley
http://fiordiliji.ingentaselect.com/...v/cw/iapt/0040
0262/v52n1/s11/p101, arguing that the lower estimates are likely to be
correct

What with the backlog of unrevised families there is a high degree of
uncertainty

===
Can that statistic be further broken down, either by phylum or by
geography (how many are native to each continent, for example)?

The Angiosperm Phylogeny Website has estimated species counts for each
family.

http://www.mobot.org/MOBOT/Research/APweb/welcome.html
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley

+ + +
The APG site itself does not have data on this but is linked to
http://www.kew.org.uk/data/vascplnt.html
a Kew database (this was a book before it was a database)
PvR

If the Cheney-Bush crowd have their way with oil drilling, global warming,
logging, denial of funds for family planning, air & water pollution, etc., you
will soon be able to count the number of plant species on your fingers.
Iris,
Central NY, Zone 5a, Sunset Zone 40
"If we see light at the end of the tunnel, It's the light of the oncoming
train."
Robert Lowell (1917-1977)

In article ,
(Iris Cohen) wrote:
If the Cheney-Bush crowd have their way with oil drilling, global warming,
logging, denial of funds for family planning, air & water pollution, etc., you
will soon be able to count the number of plant species on your fingers.

Given Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, etc., you could be right Iris.
(Well the next generation or two may be able to. ;-)


Cheers, Phred.

--
LID

"Cereoid-UR12" wrote in message ...
Did you do a google search to find a website that already has this info on
it?

I do a lot of searching on Google. This time I didn't. If you don't
want to respond, you don't have to.

Do you need this info for your biology class?

No. My last biology class was in 1974. I'm just trying to learn
stuff. (I'm also trying to learn about languages, religion, art,
geography, science, etc etc etc.)

Ted Shoemaker

From: (Ted Shoemaker)

"Cereoid-UR12" wrote in message
m...
Did you do a google search to find a website that already has this info on
it?

I do a lot of searching on Google. This time I didn't. If you don't
want to respond, you don't have to.


I think you don't understand, Cereoid compulsively responds to any post that
will allow him to seem superior to someone else. The Luvox works when he
remembers to take it.

Sean



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