A horticultural flora, also known as a

garden A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is ''control''. The garden can incorporate bot ...

flora, is a plant identification aid structured in the same way as a

native plant In biogeography, a native species is indigenous to a given region or ecosystem if its presence in that region is the result of only local natural evolution (though often popularised as "with no human intervention") during history. The term is eq ...

flora Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring ( indigenous) native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms '' gut flora'' or '' skin flora''. ...

. It serves the same purpose: to facilitate plant identification; however, it only includes plants that are under cultivation as

ornamental plant Ornamental plants or garden plants are plants that are primarily grown for their beauty but also for qualities such as scent or how they shape physical space. Many flowering plants and garden varieties tend to be specially bred cultivars that ...

s growing within the prescribed climate zone or region. Traditionally published in book form, often in several volumes, such floras are increasingly likely to be produced as websites or CD ROMs.

Scope and contents

Horticultural floras include both cultigens (plants deliberately altered in some way by human activity) and those wild plants brought directly into cultivation that do not have cultigen names. They might also include colour images and useful information specific to the zone or region including: * historical details about outstanding public and private cultivated plant collections * exceptional trees (age, history, rarity, size etc.) * prominent nurserymen and plant breeders * references to the taxonomic and other literature on the plant groups * easy "spotting" or "field" characters useful for quick identification * notes on

ecology Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overl ...

(especially the potential of plants to naturalise and become invasive) * horticultural history of introduction *

conservation Conservation is the preservation or efficient use of resources, or the conservation of various quantities under physical laws. Conservation may also refer to: Environment and natural resources * Nature conservation, the protection and manageme ...

Uses

Written by a professional plant taxonomist or plantsperson, a horticultural flora assists clarification of scientific and common names, the identification of plant characteristics that occur in cultivated plants that are additional to those in wild counterparts, and descriptions of

cultivar A cultivar is a type of cultivated plant that people have selected for desired traits and when propagated retain those traits. Methods used to propagate cultivars include: division, root and stem cuttings, offsets, grafting, tissue culture ...

s. Although horticultural floras may include a range of food plants, their emphasis is generally on ornamental plants and so these floras are sometimes referred to as "garden floras". Increasingly they provide data for sustainable landscaping, such as: * drought tolerance and irrigation needs * food sources of native and migratory bird and

butterfly Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group compris ...

species * companion planting * invasive species notation * local habitat restoration aspects.

Published

Numerous encyclopaedic listings of cultivated plants have been compiled but only four substantial horticultural floras have ever been produced, these being for: North America; Europe; South-eastern Australia, Hawaii and the

tropics The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere at S. The tropics are also refer ...

. There are several publications on trees which follow the format of botanical keys and descriptions for the trees of a specific region, notably for North America and California.

References/Bibliography

External links

Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne: ''Horticultural Flora of South-Eastern Australia''
– an example {{Horticulture and Gardening Flora Horticulture Plant taxonomy

Scope and contents

Uses

Published

See also

References/Bibliography

External links