New additions to the census of plants of Western Australia

A paper published last week in the Western Australian Herbarium's science journal Nuytsia summarises changes made in 2018 to the Western Australian plant census.

Censuses (checklists) of plants in Australia and its states and territories are important tools for conservation, weed management, agriculture, ecology, biosecurity and biology. A census represents an authoritative view of the plant species occurring in a jurisdiction, and often underpins important legislation relevant to conservation and biosecurity.

In this update, 129 taxa (species, subspecies etc.) of plants were added to the census in 2018, having been newly published or added as specimens to the Herbarium collection.

Twenty-four of these species are new weeds; the remainder are new native plants. Of the latter, 41 are conservation-listed under Western Australian conservation legislation and regulations, an indication of the importance of taxonomy in a state with many undiscovered, rare species.