Wildlife catalogue project complete

The Missouri Botanical Garden (MBG) and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (RBG Kew), announced they have completed a breakthrough in wildlife categorisation – the Plant List.

The resource represents a working list of all known land species across the world and includes 1.25 million scientific plant names.

RBG Kew director Stephen Hopper described the list as "crucial to planning, implementing and monitoring plant conservation programmes around the world".

Developers hope the list will provide a reliable means of communication worldwide and eradicate unnecessary confusion over labeling.

It includes 300,000 accepted species names, alongside almost half a million synonyms.

Just over a quarter of a million names remain unresolved – it is yet to be decided whether they are acceptable synonyms – with the remainder sub-categories of specific varieties.

Work began to amalgamate data at the two institutions in 2008.

The Royal Horticultural Society recently asked UK gardeners for their help to collect as much information as they can about wildlife in the UK.