Plant Taxonomic Research, with Special Reference to the Tropics: Problems and Potential Solutions

The rate of completion of tropical floras is both very low and very slow. Research funding councils could correct this at relatively little cost by adequately funding existing projects. The position of European universities as centers for taxonomic research and training has declined in relative terms since 1959. Nevertheless, at present there are still many more plant taxonomists and specimens in Europe and the U.S. than there are in the tropics. Over the past thirty years, European universities have retained their very large collections of tropical material, but they now have a small and aging population of tropical taxonomists to work on them; over the same period there has been a huge increase in the numbers of taxonomists and plant taxonomic institutions in the tropics. Nowadays tropical countries have the personnel and institutions, but not the reference specimens. Institutes in Europe and the U.S. should act to correct these deficiencies by offering scholarships to taxonomists from the tropics to work in Europe or the U.S. Scholarships for European and U.S. taxonomists to work in the tropics must also be offered so as to optimize the use of their collections. A similar but lesser problem with a similar solution exists in the temperate zone, where the major taxonomic resources occur in regions where most is known about the flora, while regions where little is known have few resources. Contract‐based funding for sections of major taxonomic projects would almost certainly stimulate the university taxonomic infrastructure.