• Question: How many species of plants are there?

    Asked by to Izzy, Amelia on 20 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Isabel Webb

      Isabel Webb answered on 20 Mar 2014:

      Currently we estimate there to be between 300,000 and 400,000 species of plants in the world! This doesn’t count any plants we might not have found yet, or plants that have gone extinct. The Millenium Seed Bank in Kew is a project that is trying to collect seeds from all of them. They have about 75,000 so far, and think it will take at least 6 more years to complete the project.

      Quite a lot of plant species are at threat of extinction – including one fifth of all the plant species in the UK! We think that the UK has about 4000 plant species, so 800 of these are at risk.

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 20 Mar 2014:

      More than we could possibly imagine. There are estimates, but we may never know. There is much to be discovered, and I’d like to find a few myself.

      I fancy myself as the Indiana Jones of plants!

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