World Flora Online

The World Flora Online (WFO) is an open-access database, launched In October 2012 as a follow-up project to The Plant List, with the aim of publishing an online flora of all known plants by 2020.[1] It is a project of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, with goal of halting the loss of plant species worldwide by 2020. It is developed by a collaborative group of institutions around the world in response to the 2011–2020 Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC)’s updated Target 1: to produce "an online flora of all known plants".

An accessible flora of all known plant species was considered a fundamental requirement for plant conservation. It provides a baseline for the achievement and monitoring of other targets of the strategy. The previous target of GSPC was achieved in 2010 with The Plant List.[2][3] WFO was conceived in 2012 by an initial group of four institutions; the Missouri Botanical Garden, the New York Botanical Garden, the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.[4] 36 institutions are involved in the production.[3]