The Plant List — A working list for all plant species

⚠ Version 1.1 of The Plant List has been superseded and should no longer be used.

The new version is available at http://www.worldfloraonline.org. The new version is enhanced, using more data sources including Taxonomic Expert Networks and will be more frequently updated.

The Angiosperms (Flowering plants)

Aphelandra flava Nees

Angiosperms are seed-bearing vascular plants. Their reproductive structures are flowers in which the ovules are enclosed in an ovary. Angiosperms are found in almost every habitat from forests and grasslands to sea margins and deserts. Angiosperms display a huge variety of life forms including trees, herbs, submerged aquatics, bulbs and epiphytes. The largest plant families are Orchids, and Compositae (daisies) and Legumes (beans).

There are an estimated 352,000 species of flowering plants or angiosperms.

You can also browse genera found in Angiosperms.

View statistics at the bottom of the page.

Families in Angiosperms

Statistics

Species of Angiosperms contained within The Plant List belong to 405 plant families and 14,559 plant genera.

The Plant List includes 951,140 scientific plant names of species rank for the Angiosperms. Of these 304,419 are accepted species names.

The Plant List includes a further 214,504 scientific plant names of infraspecific rank for the Angiosperms. We do not intend The Plant List to be complete for names of infraspecific rank. These are primarily included because names of species rank are synonyms of accepted infraspecific names.

Species names

The status of the 951,140 species names for the Angiosperms recorded in The Plant List, are as follows:

Pie chart of binomial name statuses
Status Total
Accepted 304,419 32.0%
Synonym 430,346 45.2%
Unplaced 243 0.0%
Unassessed 216,132 22.7%

All names

The status of the 1,165,644 names (including infraspecific names) for the Angiosperms recorded in The Plant List, are as follows:

Pie chart of all name statuses
Status Total
Accepted 324,810 27.9%
Synonym 619,259 53.1%
Unplaced 249 0.0%
Unassessed 221,326 19.0%

Of the species names,

A further 1,311 name records indicate where names have been misapplied.

The confidence with which the status of the 951,140 species names recorded in The Plant List for the Angiosperms, are assigned as follows:

Confidence level Accepted Synonym Unplaced Unassessed Total
High confidence 148,269 226,088 0 0 374,357 39.4%
Medium confidence 147,855 177,135 0 0 324,990 34.2%
Low confidence 8,295 27,123 243 216,132 251,793 26.5%

The source of the species name records found in The Plant List for the Angiosperms is as follows:

Source of record Accepted Synonym Unplaced Unassessed Misapplied Total
ILDIS 19,874 21,972 0 30 1,048 41,876 4.4%
IOPI 498 809 0 23 0 1,330 0.1%
iPlants 3,518 7,629 0 371 7 11,518 1.2%
IPNI 0 0 0 6,692 0 6,692 0.7%
TICA 32,615 47,557 28 27,003 0 107,203 11.3%
RJP 4,689 6,929 26 16,658 0 28,302 3.0%
Tropicos 54,313 59,379 0 20,063 0 133,755 14.1%
WCSP 121,526 194,938 0 10,759 140 327,223 34.4%
WCSP (in review) 67,386 91,133 189 134,533 116 293,241 30.8%