The flora of angola: Collectors, richness and endemism

Abstract

Angola is botanically rich and floristically diverse, but is still very unevenly explored with very few collections from the eastern half of the country. We present an overview of historical and current botanical activity in Angola, and point to some areas of future research. Approximately 6850 species are native to Angola and the level of endemism is around 14.8%. An additional 230 naturalised species have been recorded, four of which are regarded as highly invasive. We draw attention to the paucity of IUCN Red List assessments of extinction risk for Angolan vascular plants and note that the endemic aquatic genus Angolaea (Podostemaceae), not currently assessed, is at high risk of extinction as a result of dams built on the Cuanza river for hydro-electric power generation. Recent initiatives to document areas of high conservation concern have added many new country and provincial records and are starting to fill geographic gaps in collections coverage.