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.

Who will name new plant species? Temporal change in the origins of taxonomists in China

“…While it is necessary to send foreign plant taxonomists to the right geographical locations, especially in the tropics [23], our study highlights that training and supporting resident taxonomists to describe their endemic species should be a priority [4]. Specifically, we suggest that support for natural history or the popular science of nature is a key step to prevent ‘plant blindness’ of the general public [28], and to attract and train young generations to study plant taxonomy [26,29]. This support should include para-taxonomist training and professional taxonomy courses supported by experts from botanical gardens, museums, universities and NGOs, as well as cooperative training programs with foreign institutions [4,26].…”

Two new species from Sulawesi and Borneo facilitate phylogeny and taxonomic revision of Engelhardia (Juglandaceae)

“…Our findings show that there is an urgent need for inventories, herbarium work, nomenclature, identification, and comparative studies of plant diversity in Southeast Asia, the global biodiversity hotspots. As mentioned, therefore, there is a need to attract young scientists to specialize in plant taxonomy in Southeast Asia ( Yang et al., 2020 ). Over the past twenty years, the Chinese Plant Names Index (CPNI) has added many vascular plans of China ( Du et al., 2020 ).…”

New contributions to Goodyerinae and Dendrobiinae (Orchidaceae) in the flora of China

“…These new taxa and records are mainly distributed in southeast Xizang, the Hengduan Mountains and southeast Yunnan, which are regarded as hotspots of orchid diversity as well as hotspots for China's endemic flora in general ( Zhang et al., 2015 ; Huang et al., 2016 ). The majority of our knowledge of orchids from these regions is accumulated from floras ( Chen et al., 2009 ; Xu et al., 2010 ; Jin et al., 2019 ), ongoing regional surveys ( Jin et al., 2018 ; Wang et al., 2018 ) and descriptions of new species ( Hu et al., 2013 ; Averyanov et al., 2015 , 2019 ; Liu et al., 2016a ; Zhai et al., 2017 ; Zhang et al., 2017 ; Cai et al., 2019 ; Li et al., 2019 ; Ya et al., 2019a , b ; Aung et al., 2020 ; Du et al., 2020 ; Yang et al., 2020 ). The geographic distributions of many species remain unknown, and the potential discovery of undescribed orchid species, especially in the shrinking primeval forests of the region, requires continued field work.…”