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Flora is the plant life occurring in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring or indigenous—native plant life. The corresponding term for animal life is fauna. Flora, fauna and other forms of life such as fungi are collectively referred to as biota.

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[edit] Etymology

"Flora" comes from the Latin name of Flora, the goddess of plants,flowers, and fertility in Roman mythology.


[edit] Flora classifications

Plants are grouped into floras based on region, period, special environment, or climate. Regions can be geographically distinct habitats like mountain vs. flatland. Floras can mean plant life of a historic era as in fossil flora. Lastly, floras may be subdivided by special environments:

Native flora. The native andindigenous flora of an area.
Agricultural and Horticultural flora (garden flora). The plants that are deliberately grown by humans.
Weed flora. Traditionally this classification was applied to plants regarded as undesirable, and studied in efforts to control or eradicate them. Today the designation is less often used as a classification of plant life, since it includes three different types of plants:weedy species, invasive species (that may or may not be weedy), and native and introduced non-weedy species that are agriculturally undesirable. Many native plants previously considered weeds have been shown to be beneficial or even necessary to various ecosystems.

Bacterial organisms are sometimes included in a flora,[1] [2] and sometimes the terms bacterial_flora and plant flora are usedseparately.


[edit] Flora treatises

Main article: Flora treatise
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Floristic regions in Europe according to Wolfgang Frey and Rainer Lösch
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Plants
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A fossil leaf from the extinct Comptonia columbiana, 48.5 million years old. Klondike Mountain Formation, Republic, Ferry County, Washington, USA. Stonerose Interpretive Center.

A flora treatise, alsoknown simply as a Flora, usually requires some specialist botanical knowledge to use with any effectiveness. Traditionally flora treatises are books, but some are now published on CD-ROM or websites.

It is said that the Flora Sinensis by the Polish Jesuit Michał Boym was the first book that used the name "Flora" in this meaning, a book covering the plant world of a region.[3] However, despite itstitle it covered not only plants, but also some animals of the region.

A flora treatise often contains diagnostic keys. Often these are dichotomous keys, which require the user to repeatedly examine a plant, and decide which one of two alternatives given in the flora best applies to the plant.

A compendium of world floras has been compiled by David Frodin.[4]


[edit] Classic florasEurope

Flora Londinensis, William Curtis. England 1777- 1798
Flora Graeca, John Sibthorp. (England) 1806 - 1840
Flora Danica, Simon Paulli. Denmark, 1847.
Flora Jenensis, Heinrich Bernhard Rupp Germany, 1718.
Flora Suecica, Carolus Linnaeus. 1745.

India

Hortus indicus malabaricus, Hendrik van Rheede 1683–1703

Indonesia

Flora Javae, Carl Ludwig Blume and Joanne Baptista Fischer.1828.

Iran

Flora of Iran

Pakistan

Flora of Pakistan

China

Flora Sinensis, Michał Boym, 1656[3]

America

Flora Brasiliensis, Martius, Endlicher, et al. 1840 to 1906


[edit] Modern floras


[edit] Americas

Caribbean

Britton, N. L., and Percy Wilson. Scientific Survey of Porto Rico and the Virgin Islands — Volume V, Part 1: Botany of Porto Rico and the Virgin Islands:Pandanales to Thymeleales. New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1924.

Central & South America

Flora of São Paulo in Brazil
Flora de Chile
Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica
Flora of Ecuador
Flora of Guatemala
Flora de Nicaragua
Flora of Peru
Flora of the Guianas
Flora of Panama
Flora del Paraguay
Flora of Suriname
Flora Mesoamericana (1994-ongoing) Introduction
Flora of the...