Global Ecology and Conservation (Dec 2020)
Mapping Asia Plants: Current status of floristic information for Northeast Asia
Abstract
As part of the Mapping Asia Plants (MAP) project, floristic works for Northeast Asia (i.e., China, Japan, the Korean Peninsula, and Mongolia) have been surveyed and compared. From the 18th century to the beginning of the 20th century, most floristic research in Northeast Asia was performed by European nations. Since then, local botanists have directed the course of floristic research. Although a “Flora of Northeast Asia” has yet to be published, several materials covering more than one country have published, from Maximowicz’s “Primitiae Florae Amurensis” (1895) to Ma’s “A Checklist of Woody Plants from Eastern Asia” (2017). However, the status of floristic information in Northeast Asia varies widely by country. China, Japan, and the North Korea published the latest editions of their floras in 2020, 2013, and 2000, respectively. Both Mongolia and South Korea have published several volumes of their latest floras and plan to complete them in the next few years. Together, these works give an overall picture of the flora of Northeast Asia. While every country in Northeast Asia has at least one plant species checklist, the availability of digital specimen records varies from 1.3 per species to 387.1 per species. Factors that currently hinder research include variation among works in how terms are used, in writing style, and taxonomic treatments, in addition to a lack of specimens for Mongolia and the Korean Peninsula. Some floras are written in their native languages and may be difficult to access for general researchers. In a few years, after the completion of the “Flora of Mongolia”, the “Flora of Korea”, and a local flora for Northeast China, floristic research in Northeast Asia will enter a new stage. Using floristic information currently available, a total of 336 families, 3506 genera, and nearly 40,000 species of vascular plants were identified in Northeast Asia.
