World's Largest Plants Database Assembled : Discovery News

"Capping the UN's International Year of Biodiversity, botanists in Britain and the United States on Wednesday unveiled a library of plant names aimed at helping conservationists, drug designers and agriculture researchers. The database, accessible at The Plant List, identifies 1.25 million names for plants, ranging from essential food crops such as wheat, rice and corn to garden roses and exotic jungle ferns, and provides links to published research. The aim is to clear up a century-old taxonomic jumble in which non-standard names sowed ignorance, rivalry and sometimes damaging confusion about the world's plant wealth. Without accurate names, understanding and communication about global plant life would descend into inefficient chaos, costing vast sums of money and threatening lives in the case of plants used for food or medicine," Britain's Royal Botanic Gardens (RBG) said...."