What are Floras?

A Flora is a published work devoted to the plants of a particular region, and also is restricted usually to a major segment of the plant kingdom (e.g., mosses, flowering plants). It is both an inventory of the species of plants of a particular group in a definite area, and a means of identifying and naming these plants. Floras usually provide keys to aid identification, as well as descriptions and often illustrations.

For each species the following information is usually provided: scientific name, author citation, reference to source of original publication, other names by which the species has been known (scientific and common), detailed description of the plant, distribution within the area in question, status (whether endemic, indigenous or naturalised), and notes on ecology and habitat, as well as discussion about distinguishing characters, variation, relationships and other cultural and historical information.

Floras are compiled from all available sources, especially from (a) published specialist accounts, (b) information gained from herbarium collections, and (c) from the results of new work by the Flora writer on plants in the field or in cultivation. It is in the last two of these, and particularly the last, that a Flora makes its greatest contribution to botanical knowledge.

In New Zealand, Landcare Research is doing ongoing plant biosystematics research that will result in new and updated flora of New Zealand.

Why are Floras important?

  1. Floras are basic reference works about the plant world around us.
  2. Floras are the authoritative texts on which many popular books (botanical, agricultural, horticultural and more general works) are based, and from which informed decisions about plants can be made.
  3. Floras provide a recommendation as to the correct names of plants in a region.
  4. Floras, in aiding plant identification, give access to other information about plants; such as their rarity, their poisonous, drug or medicinal properties, their uses for food and traditional craft purposes.
  5. Major uses of Floras are in ecology and conservation (National Parks, reserves, rare plants etc), horticulture and agriculture (identification and correct names of weeds and cultivated plants), and education. They are used extensively, both within the region for which they are written and other regions, particularly those which share many of the plants, by both professional and amateur biologists.
  6. Floras take many years of careful work and serve as the authoritative text on the plant group within a region. It is often several decades before they are revised in whole or in part.
  7. Floras encourage botanical research by highlighting problem groups of plants, and in doing so may soon be out of date. Thus, in New Zealand, where many plant groups are not well understood, there is a need for frequent revision of Floras.
  8. Floras are not produced with the aim of immediate economic gain, neither as books in themselves nor in their direct applications. However, they are essential to many economic pursuits, and are of major scientific, cultural and social value.
  9. All major western countries and many third world countries have Floras or are producing Floras, and in many countries existing Floras are being revised. Civilised countries, such as China, have had Floras for hundreds of years.

See New Zealand botanist Hugh Wilson's description of a flora.

Manaaki Whenua Press has a special page devoted to the Floras of New Zealand.

See Plant Biosystematics research .