Pacific Floras

The Marquesas Islands are an isolated group of 12 volcanic hot spot islands in the southeastern Pacific Ocean. They are one of the five archipelagos of French Polynesia. The Flora of the Marquesas Islands is a collaborative project between the National Tropical Botanical Garden, Smithsonian Institution, and Délégation à la Recherche (Tahiti, French Polynesia). An online Flora hosted by the Smithsonian Institution provides access to a database of specimens, plant images, checklists, island distributions, and literature. In addition to this Online Flora, a two-volume book Flora has been published in 2019 and 2020. The flora includes description of 826 vascular plant species recorded, of which 331 species are native, with the remainder being human-introduced. Nearly half of the native flora (47%) is endemic to the Marquesas and includes 100 ferns and lycophytes.

Micronesia is comprised of some 4,500 small islands spread across a remote part of the western Pacific and is separated into six different countries. It encompasses an area comparable in size to the continental United States yet in total its combined land area comprises an area smaller than the state of Rhode Island.  Micronesia hosts an estimated 1,227 indigenous vascular plant species of which 365 are endemic to the region. NTBG and the Smithsonian Institution has developing an online Flora of Micronesia hosted by the Smithsonian Institution which provides access to a database of specimens, plant images, checklists, island distributions, and literature. A comprehensive written and illustrated Flora is currently being worked on for later publication.

The Cook Islands lie south of the Equator and form the westernmost part of East Polynesia and consist of 15 main islands and atolls, most of them inhabited. Until recently, however, the Cook Islands had no published Flora. Retired New Zealand botanist W. R. “Bill” Sykes authored a 973-page Flora of the Cook Islands which was published by NTBG in 2016. This milestone publication was funded by the International Association of Plant Taxonomists (IAPT) as a joint publication by NTBG, the Smithsonian Institution, Landcare Research, and IAPT.

The islands of Samoa are a well-known biodiversity hotspot threatened by increasing population pressures and habitat loss, yet their Flora is poorly known compared to that of other Pacific archipelagos. Hawaiian Botanist W. Arthur Whistler (1944-2020) worked with the people and on the Flora of Samoa for nearly 50 years. Having worked with NTBG since the early 1970s, his collections of 4,900 flowering plant specimens are stored at the NTBG herbarium and form the foundation for the publication of the Flora of Samoa, Flowering Plants written by Whistler and edited by Lorence and Wagner. The Flora includes descriptions of 543 native flowering plants (including 11 new species), 33% only found in Samoa, and 290 naturalized flowering plant species. This book was published in 2022 and is available for purchase. Read more about the Flora of Samoa.

The Hawaiian Islands are an isolated archipelago of eight main volcanic islands, several atolls, and numerous smaller islands located in the north central Pacific Ocean about 3,000 km from the nearest continent, North America. Stretching over 2400 km from the island of Hawaii in the south to Kure Atoll in the north, the islands are the exposed peaks of a great undersea mountain range. Hawaii represents the northernmost part of Polynesia. The Islands are home to a diverse array of unique plants comprising approximately 1,400 native vascular plant taxa, including around 1,193 flowering plants and 212 ferns and fern allies. Nearly 90% of Hawaiian plants are found nowhere else in the world. The Hawaiian flora faces many threats, and the majority of the endemic plants are assessed as threatened by the IUCN Red List.

The online Flora of the Hawaiian Islands is a collaborative project between the National Tropical Botanical Garden, Smithsonian Institution, and the Bishop Museum. The website provides access to a database of specimens, plant images, descriptions, checklists, island distributions, and literature based on a two volume Manual of the Flowering Plants of Hawaii. The Bernice P. Bishop Museum also hosts a very useful website about the Plants of Hawaii.

The Hawaiian archipelago harbors a distinctive and isolated moss flora, with around 30% of species found exclusively in Hawaii. Despite their ecological significance, mosses are often overlooked and less well-known than flowering plants. Currently about 290 species and 143 genera are known to occur in Hawaii. The Moss Flora of the Hawaiian islands is an ongoing collaborative project among the Missouri Botanical Garden, National Tropical Botanical Garden, and the Bernice P. Bishop Museum. The project is led by moss curator Dr. Si He, Missouri Botanical Garden, who hosts a preliminary online checklist. NTBG and Bishop Museum currently digitize our bryophyte and lichen herbarium collections funded by the National Science Foundation and images and data are continuously uploaded to the Global Consortium of Bryophytes and Lichens.