Plant Cataloguing in China:Past,Present and Future

Dating at least as far back as"Shen Nong’ s Herbal Classic",China has had a systematic plant catalog.However,the development of ancient plant catalogs mainly follows herbal tradition and concentrates on practical purposes such as medicine,food,and garden aesthe-tics,which has tended to limit scientific classification compared to the West.In this paper,we conducted an overall review of the history of Chinese plant cataloging and a comprehensive comparison of all finished or ongoing Floras in the current provincial administrative regions and the Flora Reipublicae Popularis Sinicae(FRPS).We also examined the problems exposed in the compilation of the finished Floras and put forward an outlook for the future of Chinese plant cataloging.We also determined a common phenomenon in plant cataloguing regarding environmental assessment of nature reserves and other projects,which has emphasized the importance of keeping voucher specimens in plant cataloging.