30+ New Plant Species Discovered in Ecuador

05/07/2011

May 3, 2011 | Over the last five years, 32 new plant species have been discovered at our San Francisco Scientific Station – an impressive number according to David Neill, former curator at the Missouri Botanical Garden and coauthor of a new book cataloging Ecuador’s plant diversity. Many of these 32 new species are not known to occur anywhere else in the world. These discoveries demonstrate the great conservation value of the San Francisco Scientific Station as well as its cutting-edge research.

The new book documents 1,547 new additions to the Ecuadorian flora, including 719 new species described from Ecuadorian material, 421 new country records for Ecuador, and 407 taxonomic changes. The new total for the identified flora of Ecuador is 18,198 species of vascular plants (17,683 native species), of which approximately 5,400 species are considered endemic to Ecuador.