Flora North America is a long-term multi-investigator project designed to provide consistent and comparable information about the vascular plants (ferns, conifers, and flowering plants) of North America north of Mexico in both published and computerized form. The project is a cooperative effort among botanists and other scientists in more than twenty institutions in the United States and Canada; the Missouri Botanical Garden serves as the organizational center for the project, with Dr. Nancy Morin as convening editor. Funding of the first stage of work will support preparation of taxonomic synthesis for the estimated 600 species of ferns and conifers, with treatments contributed by thirty botanical specialists; support for postdoctoral research on the Cyperaceae (sedge) family; conduct of a workshop to evaluate current uses and future requirements for floristic data; and initial development of a national computer database of floristic information. Taxonomic study of all plant groups will entail critical examination of specimens as well as synthesis of the literature and will involve a two-tiered review, by an Editorial Board of leading floristics researchers and by extramural experts. Consequently, authoritative information on the vascular plants of continental United States, Canada, and Greenland (estimated to include 17,000 species), describing and evaluating their full range of variation, will be available in comparable and fully retrievable form for the first time. The computerized database is envisioned as an expandable, relational repository of data on characteristics about the plants, allowing correlation and analysis with geographical and other physical parameters. The published floras and developing computer database will benefit research in systematics and evolutionary biology, including ecology and biogeography, and will serve as practical references in biology, wildlife and land management, horticulture, agriculture, and conservation biology.
