Plant biodiversity in the tropics is threatened by intense anthropogenic pressures. Deforestation, habitat degradation, habitat fragmentation, overexploitation, invasive species, pollution, global climate change, and the synergies among them have had a major impact on biodiversity. This review paper provides a brief, yet comprehensive and broad, overview of the main threats to tropical plant biodiversity and how they differ from threats in temperate regions. The Global Strategy for Plant Conservation, an international program with 16 global targets set for 2020 aimed at understanding, conserving, and using sustainably the world’s plant biodiversity, is then used as a framework to explore efforts in assessing and managing tropical plant conservation in a changing world. Progress on 13 of the 16 outcome-oriented targets of the Strategy is explored at the pantropical scale. Within each target, I address current challenges in assessing and managing tropical plant biodiversity, identify key questions that should be addressed, and suggest ways for how these challenges might be overcome.

Conservation of Tropical Plant Biodiversity: What Have We Done, Where Are We Going?

New contributions to the flora of Myanmar I

Curcuma woodii, a new species of Curcuma subg. Ecomata (Zingiberaceae) from Thailand is described and illustrated here. It differs from C. rhomba by the leaf blades abaxially pubescent, the bracts whitish green, the labellum white with orange bands at the center, the lateral staminodes white with orange dots at the apex, and the ovary nearly glabrous.

/pdf/curcuma-woodii-zingiberaceae-a-new-species-from-thailand-27fsj74g9y.pdf

Curcuma woodii (Zingiberaceae), a new species from Thailand

Two new species of gingers (Zingiberaceae), Globba sherwoodiana W.J. Kress & V. Gowda sp. nov., and Curcuma arracanensis W.J. Kress & V. Gowda sp. nov., from Myanmar are described. The new species of Globba is currently only known in cultivation and is commonly grown and sold in markets in Myanmar. In contrast Curcuma arracanensis has been collected from a single restricted region in the cloud forests of the Rakhine Yoma above the Bay of Bengal in western Myanmar. Three-locus DNA barcodes were generated as aids for the identification of the two new species.

https://phytokeys.pensoft.net/lib/ajax_srv/article_elements_srv.php?action=download_pdf&item_id=1426

Thet Htun

Papers

Two new species of Gingers (Zingiberaceae) from Myanmar.

A Second Species of Smithatris (Zingiberaceae) from Myanmar