Plant Diversity (Aug 2020)
Contributions to the flora of Myanmar from 2000 to 2019
Abstract
Myanmar is botanically rich and floristically diverse: one of the world's biodiversity hotspots. However, Myanmar is still very unevenly explored, and until a plant checklist was published in 2003, relatively little work was done on its flora. This checklist included 11,800 species of spermatophytes in 273 families. Since this checklist was published, the botanical exploration of Myanmar has accelerated and there have been many additional publications. We therefore surveyed the literature of taxonomic contributions to Myanmar’s vascular flora over the last 20 years (2000–2019) and compiled a list of new and newly described taxa. Our list includes 13 genera, 193 species, 7 subspecies, 19 varieties, and 2 forms new to science; and 3 families, 34 genera, 347 species, 4 subspecies, 7 varieties, and 1 form newly recorded in Myanmar. Altogether, they represent 91 families and 320 genera. Most of the new discoveries belong to 15 families, with more than 25% (146 taxa) belonging to Orchidaceae. These new discoveries are unevenly distributed in the country, with about 41% of the newly discovered species described from Kachin State in northeast Myanmar. This reflects the incompleteness of our current knowledge of the flora of Myanmar and the urgent need for a greatly expanded effort. The completion of the flora of Myanmar requires more fieldwork from north to south, taxonomic studies on new and existing collections, and some mechanism that both coordinates the efforts of various international institutions and initiatives and encourages continued international cooperation. In addition, producing modern taxonomic treatments of the flora of Myanmar requires the participation of experts on all vascular plant families and genera. There is also an urgent need to attract young scientists to plant taxonomy, to work on inventories, identification, nomenclature, herbarium work, and comparative studies.
