Western Australian Flora Statistics 2009

This page provides the user with a set of standard statistics on the size, diversity and endemism of the Western Australian vascular flora as at 1^st June 2009.
Back to current floristics page.

Vascular Flora Statistics - June 2009

Analysis of the size of vascular plant divisions for various categories of name
Category	Pteridophytes	Gymnosperms	Monocots	Dicots	Total
Total names ^A	141	35	3635	15720	19531
Non-current names ^B	36	11	1062	4111	5210
Current names ^C	105	24	2573	11609	14311
Current taxa ^D	98	24	2430	10661	13213
Current alien taxa	8	7	352	832	1199
Current native taxa	90	17	2078	9829	12014
Current species ^E	96	24	2271	9669	12060
Manuscript names ^F	0	0	39	264	303
Phrase names ^G	0	0	222	1000	1222
Published species ^H	96	24	2035	8569	10724
Published alien species ^I	8	7	343	818	1176
Published native species ^J	88	17	1692	7751	9548

Data sourced on 1^st June 2009. Compare with the 2010 figures or with the 2008 figures.

^A - total number of vascular plant names in the database
^B - number of synonymous, excluded or misapplied names (ie. plant names no longer in current use, at least in WA)
^C - number of currently accepted plant names (ie. includes the species-level name when infra-species exist)
^D - number of currently accepted taxa (ie. excludes the species-level name when infra-species of that taxon exist)
^E - number of currently accepted species (ie. only the species-level names, excludes any infra-species names)
^F - number of proposed but unpublished species (ie. informal names proposed on specimens or in manuscripts)
^G - number of assigned but unpublished species (ie. informal names assigned to specimens for further analysis)
^H - number of formally published species names (ie. formally published names described in botanical literature)
^I - number of published naturalised alien species (ie. formally published names of weed species occurring in WA)
^J - number of published species native to Western Australia (ie. formally published names of native WA species).

2009 Highlights

For the vascular plants, a brief comparison of the 2009 with the 2008 data shows:

the addition of 254 names to the Census of Western Australian Plants database;
a decrease, for the second consecutive year, in the number (-71) of manuscript names in current use, down to 303, due to the formal publication of some of these putative taxa combined with the conversion of many manuscript names to phrase names as part of the Australian Plant Census project;
a small increase (+36) in the number of phrase names in current use, up to 1222;
a continued increase in the number of published species, up 116 (111 native and 5 alien) to 10,724 species.
For the first time, additional figures have been calculated to split the number of current taxa into native and alien components.
Of the 13,213 current taxa of vascular plants in the Census, there are 1,199 naturalised aliens and 12,014 native plants.

Compiler’s Note

While the current contents are manual concatenations of census data, or static tables drawn from recent published works, it is intended that future versions of this page will contain live flora statistics drawn directly from the constantly maintained datasets held at the Western Australian Herbarium. At that time we would also seek to disseminate the standard logic behind the accurate calculation of these statistics. In this way, not only will the latest figures be available at all times, but the correct methodology for calculating and applying those figures will become better understood.

Compiled by Alex Chapman; last updated on 3 June 2009.

Did you notice?

There is, in general, a diminishing relationship between figures in subsequent rows of the table, as figures in each category are subtracted from the ones above.
Eg. in each column: A - B = C.

Having trouble deciding ...

... the most appropriate data for your purpose? The highlighted rows are the recommended figures if you need:

to cite the actual number of known vascular plant entities in WA ^D, or
a conservative estimate of the number of well-documented vascular plant species ^H.

'Green's Census'

For those familiar with Green, J.W. (1985) Census of the vascular plants of Western Australia 2nd ed., WA Herbarium, Perth and subsequent supplements, the following four PDF tables are presented in the style of Green's statistical summaries. They provide further details corresponding to row H in the above table. Data also sourced on 1^st June 2009.

Table 1. Conspectus Of Families And Genera With Statistics
Table 2. Families Ranked By Number Of Species
Table 3. Genera Ranked By Number Of Species
Table 4. Size Of Vascular Plant Divisions