Botany: Systematics and Identification

AlgaeBase is a database of information on algae that includes terrestrial, marine and freshwater organisms. At present, the data for the marine algae, particularly seaweeds, are the most complete. For convenience, we have included the sea-grasses even though they are flowering plants.

The Andean Botanical Information System (ABIS) presents information from floristic and systematic investigations of the flowering plants (phanerogams) of Andean South America. Topics include selected geographic regions and groups of Andean plants, flora of coastal Peru and Chile, floristic inventories from a variety of habitats in northern Peru, bibliographic resources, and searchable databases.

This Web site describes the families and orders of angiosperms.

Integrates and critically evaluates information from Flora Europaea, Med-Checklist, the Flora of Macaronesia, and from regional and national floras and checklists from the area as well as additional taxonomic and floristic literature.

The first major regional flora ever written in Spanish, Flora Mesoamericana is a collaborative effort of the Missouri Botanical Garden the Instituto de Biología of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the Natural History Museum, London, and numerous specialists world-wide. In Spanish, the Flora describes, for the first time, all the vascular plants growing in the southeasternmost states of Mexico (including the Yucatán Peninsula) and all the Central American republics.

A flora is a comprehensive, systematic account of the plant species of a given area — in this case, North America north of Mexico. Flora of North America builds upon the cumulative wealth of information acquired since botanical studies began in the United States and Canada more than two centuries ago. Recent research has been integrated with historical studies, so that the Flora of North America is a single-source synthesis of North American floristics. FNA has the full support of scientific botanical societies and is the botanical community's vehicle for synthesizing and presenting this information.

The Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN) web server provides germplasm information about plants, animals, microbes and invertebrates. This program is within the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service.

Aims to address the needs of researchers, policy-makers, environmental managers and the wider public for a consistent and up-to-date listing of all the world’s known species.

The Gymnosperm Database was established as an online entity in the summer of 1997 and has since grown steadily, getting its own URL (Conifers.org) in the summer of 1999. Currently the Database provides basic information (sometimes only a name) for all species and higher-ranked taxa of the gymnosperms, i.e., conifers, cycads, and their allies. You enter the taxonomic tree at the Family level and then navigate to the Genus, Species or sometimes Variety levels. At each level, information on the taxon at hand is provided, along with bibliographic citations that will take you to more detailed information about the taxon.

Index Hepaticarum, a list of all specific and infra-specific hornwort and liverwort names published between the effective dates of 01.01.1853 and 31.12.1973, was started at G in the 1950's by the then curator of bryophytes Charles Bonner. The aim of the project was to collate together all published hornwort and liverwort names and make these available to the scientific community to facilitate systematic research on these two groups of plants. Since this database is in French, use this helpful blog entry for tips on how to search it.

For the past three centuries, scientists have documented the earth’s plant and fungal diversity through dried reference specimens maintained in collections known as herbaria. There are approximately 3,990 herbaria in the world today, with approximately 10,000 associated curators and biodiversity specialists. Collectively the world’s herbaria contain an estimated 350,000,000 specimens that document the earth’s vegetation for the past 400 years. Index Herbariorum is a guide to this crucial resource for biodiversity science and conservation.

A compilation of generic names published for organisms covered by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature.

Also known as W3MOST, this database of moss names was prepared as part of the Index of Mosses project at the Missouri Botanical Garden. The Index of Mosses project produces guides to newly published nomenclature for mosses.

Welcome to ITIS, the Integrated Taxonomic Information System! Here you will find authoritative taxonomic information on plants, animals, fungi, and microbes of North America and the world.

The International Code of Botanical Nomenclature is the "rulebook" that governs the naming of all plants and fungi. The latest ICBN is the "Vienna" code from 2005.

The International Plant Names Index (IPNI) is a database of the names and associated basic bibliographical details of seed plants, ferns and fern allies. Its goal is to eliminate the need for repeated reference to primary sources for basic bibliographic information about plant names. The data are freely available and are gradually being standardized and checked. IPNI will be a dynamic resource, depending on direct contributions by all members of the botanical community. IPNI is the product of a collaboration between The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, The Harvard University Herbaria, and the Australian National Herbarium.

The Jepson Manual Online treats the nearly 8,000 vascular plant taxa native or naturalized in California. It represents the most comprehensive guide to the state flora and includes special information such as horticultural requirements, endangerment, toxicity, weed status, and notes on the management of sensitive species.

The database has been generated from word processor files used for producing the camera-ready copy of the printed volume of NCU-3. Numerous corrections of detail have already been effected, so that the e-version in some respects represents an update of the printed version. We hope that in the current version (1.0) we have succeeded in eliminating most of the errors introduced in the conversion process.

The PLANTS Database provides standardized information about the vascular plants, mosses, liverworts, hornworts, and lichens of the U.S. and its territories. It includes names, plant symbols, checklists, distributional data, species abstracts, characteristics, images, crop information, automated tools, onward Web links, and references. This information primarily promotes land conservation in the United States and its territories, but academic, educational, and general use is encouraged.

Autonomous federation of taxonomic database custodians, involving taxonomists throughout the world whose goal is to collate a uniform and validated index to the world's known species (plants, animals, fungi and microbes).

Browse this database of rainforest plants of the Amazon by common name, botanical name, and ethnic uses.

TROPICOS® was originally created for internal research but has since been made available to the world’s scientific community. All of the nomenclatural, bibliographic, and specimen data accumulated in MBG’s electronic databases during the past 25 years are publicly available here. This system has over one million scientific names and 3.5 million specimen records.

This Checklist gives information on the accepted scientific names and synonyms of selected plant families. It allows you to search for all the scientific names of a particular plant, or the areas of the world in which it grows (distribution). The checklist includes 151 Seed Plant families (View list of included families or reviewers). Different families are in different stages of review as indicated in the family list.

A comprehensive, accurate and up-to-date listing of all accepted cycad names and their synonyms.