GATEWAY TO AFRICAN PLANTS

Gateway to African Plants is a collaborative project to enable the identification species of plants found in sub-saharan Africa and Madagascar, and to find further information about them. The resources contained in this community website, are also intended help contributors to the project develop the identification tools.

Currently the 4 main components of Gateway are:

An Interactive Key

This is a web-based multi-access identification tool in LUCID and DELTA INTKEY formats, which when complete will enable identification to any of the 4500 native genera of flowering plant of Sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar and provide the basis for idetification of species.

An illustrated Glossary

Here the terminology in the key is explained in non-technical English, with definitions from a variety of literature sources. It is intended as an aid to users of the finished key as well as a reference for contributors filling in taxon scoresheets in order to help build the key.

A standard Checklist of plant names

This is based on R. Klopper et al’s 2006 Checklist: Flowering Plants of Sub-Saharan Africa, which is a complete index of accepted names and synonyms for Sub-Saharan African plants for reference purposes. It consists of a full list of current family names, each of which can be selected to reveal the current genus names within that family.

A set of detailed, literature-sourced Botanical Descriptions

Approximately 3000 genus descriptions are currently available on the site, but many more including species are also soon to be added. These can be found by selecting names in the checklist, or else via the interactive keys.