35,000 new species 'sitting in cupboards'

Science 07 Dec 10 Of the estimated 70,000 species of flowering plants yet to be described by scientists, more than half may already have been collected but are lying unknown and unrecognised in collections around the world, a new study suggests. A lack of resources for collections of plant specimens - known as 'herbaria' - and a lack of experts who can identify new species are leaving a vital reservoir of information about global biodiversity untapped, the study's authors believe. Their work shows that it currently takes on average 30-40 years from the time a flowering plant specimen is collected to it being recognised and described as a new species. A report of the research appears this week in PNAS . 'Many people think that discovering new species is primarily about expeditions to exotic locations and collecting new specimens, but the truth is that thousands of new plant species are lying unidentified in cupboards, drawers and cabinets around the world,' said Dr Robert Scotland of Oxford University's Department of Plant Sciences, an author of the report. At the moment our knowledge of flowering plants is greater than our knowledge of almost any other group of organisms of comparable size - it is estimated that we know about 4 out of 5 species compared to knowing about only 1 in 10 species of insect, for example. Because flowering plants are found in every terrestrial habitat and every area of the globe they are a vital tool for monitoring biodiversity.