Conservation of Chinese Plant Diversity: An Overview

Abstract

China is one of the richest countries in plant diversity, ranking third in the world (after Brazil and Colombia) in number of species, and one of the world’s 17 ‘mega-diversity’ countries (Mittermeier et al., 1997). The estimated number of vascular plant species may approach 33,000, with 30,000 angiosperms, 250 gymnosperms, and 2,600 pteridophytes (up to 12%, 27% and 20% of world’s total, respectively). Furthermore, approximately 2,200 bryophytes can be found in China (López-Pujol et al., 2006; Table 1). There are more than 3,000 genera and ca. 350 families of vascular plants (Li et al., 2003; MacKinnon & Wang, 2008). Nevertheless, these figures refer to mainland China and do not include either Taiwan or Hong Kong. Taiwan alone harbors more than 4,000 vascular plants (over 3,300 angiosperms, about 30 gymnosperms, and about 600 pteridophytes; Hsieh, 2002). With an area of only about 1,100 km2, Hong Kong still retains a very rich plant diversity, with more than 2,100 higher plants (Wu, 2002)...