New plant species are probably still waiting to be discovered in the Las Nubes Park in the Colombian Andes. | Photo: Timm Humpfer / Keystone

More than 50,000 plant species have yet to be discovered. And we know too little about the distribution of many of the 350,000 species that have already been described. Daniele Silvestro of the University of Fribourg is part of a team that has been investigating just where such ‘dark spots’ in the plant world are located. To this end, they combed through databases, field trip reports and other sources for information on plants that have already been collected. Their analysis revealed that a large number of species has yet to be discovered, especially in Colombia, New Guinea and South Asia. The regions in question are also almost all hotspots for biodiversity. Silvestro is now arguing in favour of increased support for botanical research and citizen science projects there. He also believes that greater use should be made of technologies like modelling and AI.

I. Ondo et al.: Plant diversity darkspots for global collection priorities. New Phytologist (2024)