Western Australian Flora Statistics
2014 Vascular Flora Statistics

Table 1. Analysis of the size of vascular plant divisions for various categories of name; data sourced on 1 June 2014.
Category Pteridophytes Gymnosperms Monocots Dicots* Total
Total names A 143 40 3,830 16,798 20,811
Non-current names B 35 14 1,160 4,848 6,057
Current names C 108 26 2,670 11,950 14,754
Species with infraspecies K 8 0 145 969 1,122
Current taxa D 100 26 2,525 10,981 13,632
Current alien taxa 8 9 363 860 1,240
Current native taxa 92 17 2,162 10,121 12,392
Current species E 98 26 2,368 10,001 12,493
Current alien species 8 9 355 848 1,220
Current native species 90 17 2,013 9,153 11,273
Manuscript names F 0 0 19 56 75
Phrase names G 0 0 272 1,139 1,411
Published species H 98 26 2,100 8,936 11,160
Published alien species I 8 9 355 846 1,218
Published native species J 90 17 1,745 8,090 9,942
Named hybrids L 0 0 28 35 63
Un-named hybrids 0 0 2 18 20
  • The term taxa here refers to entities at species level and below
  • The term species refers only to those entities at species rank
  • * The term dicot is here used in its traditional sense to retain compatibility with previous tables and for ease of use. ‘Dicotyledons’ is now strictly a paraphyletic assemblage of the Nymphaeales, ‘magnoliids’ and ‘eudicot’ clades (cf. New Systematic Sequence)

Highlights

A brief comparison of the 2014 data with the previous year (2013).

  • the addition of 250 vascular plant names to the Census of Western Australian Plants database;
  • there are 93 additional taxa recognised as occurring in the State: 85 native taxa and 8 naturalised taxa;
  • the number of published species rose by 106 to 11,160, including 98 native species and 8 naturalised species;
  • a small decrease in the number (-22) of manuscript names in current use, down to 75, continuing the trend of the last 6 years, due either to their formal publication or their conversion to phrase names as part of the Australian Plant Census project;
  • a very small increase (+4) in the number of phrase names in current use, up to 1,411;
  • therefore, for the fourth year in succession, there has been a decrease (-18) in the number of putative taxa yet to be researched and published, from 1,504 in 2012 to 1,486.

Other Collections Statistics

Data sourced on Thursday, 1 June 2017. Other core statistics often required for citation in various works include the number of:

  • specimens now held in the WA Herbarium Specimen Database (WAHERB) = 780,296
  • plant names now held in the WA Herbarium Census of WA Plants Database (WACENSUS) = 24,220
  • images now held in the WA Herbarium Image Collection = 61,232
  • composite images illustrating taxa in FloraBase = 7,459

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 1 June 2014.

Related content

Did you notice?

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

Highlighted rows

Highlighted rows are the recommended figures if you need:

  • to cite the actual number of known entities in WA (D), or
  • a conservative estimate of the number of well-documented species (H).