On Wednesday, June, 20th, 2018 the new Portal of the Flora of Italy was presented in Milan (Palazzo Reale, Piazza Duomo). The portal was created by the Department of Life Sciences of the Trieste University (Dryades Project).

The Portal organizes data deriving from a decade of work by a team of more than 50 Italian and foreign botanists belonging to more than 30 institutions, culminating in the recent publication of the checklists of wild (8.195 ) and alien (1.597) plants of Italy, for a total of almost 10,000 species and subspecies, 1,708 of which are endemic to Italy.

With these figures, Italy ranks first in Europe and second in the Mediterranean (after Turkey) for the richness of its flora, which invests Italians with a great responsibility for its conservation. On the other hand, Italy also ranks second / third in Europe for the invasion rate of alien plants, which are the greatest threat to biodiversity after the destruction of habitats.

The data on the flora of Italy are now available online through a portal accessible to both professionals (researchers, managers of protected areas, administrators) and enthusiasts.

The Portal, which will be updated twice a year, is linked to other resources, including those of Acta Plantarum, the main Italian forum of botanical enthusiasts, and those of Project Dryades, including c. 200,000 digital images, cladograms, Italian and dialectal names, and interactive keys to identification.

Portal of the Flora of Italy