• Question: how many plant species are growing today?

    Asked by anon-44771 to Amelia, Clem, Izzy, Sarah on 17 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Isabel Webb

      Isabel Webb answered on 17 Mar 2014:

      We estimate more than 320,000 plant species on Earth!!! There are about 12,000 species of plant in Europe, and about 3000 in Britain.

      There may be many more than these that we have never seen before – for example plants evolving on islands that humans have never visited. For example, some explorers in Australia found a valley with a new species of pine tree – and the 12 trees in that valley are the only ones of that tree in the entire world (the Wollemi pine).

      Just like all other types of living thing, plants are constantly evolving and others are becoming extinct (who knows what species have been lost by cutting down the Amazonian Rainforest). The Millenium Seed Bank in Kew is a group of scientists that are trying to collect seeds from every plant on Earth so that they can save them if they become extinct. So far, they have about 11% of the world’s species – they hope to have collected them all by the year 2020, which means it will take them a very long time!!!

    • Photo: Amelia Frizell-Armitage

      Amelia Frizell-Armitage answered on 17 Mar 2014:

      On Earth there are estimated to be around 300,000 species. This is only an estimate, not a known number, because we still haven’t found them all! In fact every year around 2,000 new species are discovered…

      Some biologists think that there are around 80,000 plant species that we still don’t know about. This means it would take around 40 more years to find them all.

      The problem is, species are constantly evolving, so every so often a new species will appear. At the same time, species are becoming extinct either naturally, or because we have destroyed their habitat. All these things together mean that we could probably go on discovering new species for ever without truly knowing how many there are on earth!

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 17 Mar 2014:

      Thank you for your question, you sound interested and curious

      Isabel and Amelia are spot on, big big numbers.

      More are being discovered everyday by scientists, but sadly others are becoming extinct too, sometimes before we’ve even discovered them 🙁

      This kind of question crosses my mind every day. As a curious person, I often do a quick look on google and am always amazed by the answer 🙂 These are the ways of Scientists! 🙂

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