Diversity of vascular plant taxa of the flora of Ethiopia and Eritrea

Abstract

The Ethiopian Flora Project was started in 1980 with the objectives of writing up a Flora of Ethiopia within the shortest time possible; build-up of the National Herbarium and a related library and promoting scientific activities in taxonomic botany, economic botany, forestry, plant ecology, plant physiology, etc. The writing up of the Flora of Ethiopia within the shortest time possible was the cardinal objective of the project. In the Flora of Ethiopia and Eritrea about 6,027 vascular plant species (including subspecies), with about 10% endemism have been documented in eight volumes in ten books. In addition to providing the total number of taxa (species and subspecies) in the Flora area (Ethiopia and Eritrea), information on how many of these vascular plant taxa are fern-allies (lycopodiophytes), ferns (pteridophytes), naked-seeded plants (gymnosperms) and flowering plants (angiosperms), and how many of the taxa in these groups are restricted in their distribution (endemic) to the Flora area, both Ethiopia and Eritrea, Ethiopia or Eritrea only. This paper presents a brief account of the diversity of the vascular plants in the Flora area to highlight the values of the resource that has been developed during the past 30 years.