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Floristic province
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A floristic province is a geographic area with a relatively uniform composition of plant species. Adjacent floristic provinces do not usually have a sharp boundary, but rather a soft one, a transitional area in which many species from both regions overlap. The region of overlap is called a vegetation tension zone.
Several systems of floristic provinces have been devised. Most systems are organized hierarchically, with the largest units subdivided into smaller geographic areas, which are made up of smaller floristic communities, and so on. Floristic provinces are defined as areas possessing a large number of endemic taxons. Floristic kingdoms are characterized by a high degree of family endemism, regions – by a high degree of generic endemism, provinces – by a high degree of species endemism. Systems of floristic provinces have both significant similarities and differences with zoogeographic provinces, which follow the composition of mammal families, and with biogeographical provinces or terrestrial ecoregions, which take into account both plant and animal species.
Botanist Ronald Good identified six floristic kingdoms (Boreal, Neotropical, Paleotropical, South African, Australian, and Antarctic), the largest natural units he determined for flowering plants. Good's six kingdoms are subdivided into smaller units, called provinces. The Paleotropical kingdom is divided into three subkingdoms, which are each subdivided into floristic provinces. Each of the other five kingdoms are subdivided directly into provinces. There are a total of 37 floristic provinces. Almost all provinces are further subdivided into floristic regions.
Armen Takhtajan, in a widely used scheme that builds on Good's work, identified thirty-five floristic regions, each of which is subdivided into floristic provinces, of which there are 152 in all.
Taxonomic databases tend to be organized in ways which approximate floristic provinces, but which are more closely aligned to political boundaries, for example according to the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions.
- 1 Arctic
- 2 Atlantic Europe
- 3 Central Europe
- 4 Illyria or Balkan
- 5 Pontus Euxinus
- 6 Caucasus
- 7 Eastern Europe
- 8 Northern Europe
- 9 Western Siberia
- 10 Altai-Sayan
- 11 Central Siberia
- 12 Transbaikalia
- 13 Northeastern Siberia
- 14 Okhotsk-Kamchatka
- 15 Canada incl. Great Lakes
- 16 Manchuria
- 17 Sakhalin-Hokkaidō
- 18 Japan-Korea
- 19 Volcano-Bonin
- 20 Ryūkyū or Tokara-Okinawa
- 21 Taiwan
- 22 Northern China
- 23 Central China
- 24 Southeastern China
- 25 Sikang-Yuennan
- 26 Northern Burma
- 27 Eastern Himalaya
- 28 Khasi-Manipur
- 29 Appalachian Province (forested areas extending east to include the piedmont and west to the start of the prairies)
- 30 Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plain
- 31 North American Prairies
- 32 Vancouver
- 33 Rocky Mountains
- 34 Azores
- 35 Madeira
- 36 Canaries
- 37 Cape Verde
- 38 Southern Morocco
- 39 Southwestern Mediterranean
- 40 South Mediterranean
- 41 Iberia
- 42 Baleares
- 43 Liguria-Tyrrhenia
- 44 Adriatic
- 45 East Mediterranean
- 46 Crimea-Novorossijsk
- 47 Sahara
- 48 Egypt-Arabia
- 49 Mesopotamia
- 50 Central Anatolia
- 51 Armenia-Iran
- 52 Hyrcania
- 53 Turania or Aralo-Caspia
- 54 Turkestan
- 55 Northern Baluchistan
- 56 Western Himalaya
- 57 Central Tien Shan
- 58 Dzungaria-Tien Shan
- 59 Mongolia
- 60 Tibet
- 61 Great Basin
- 62 California
- 63 Sonora
- 64 Mexican Highlands
- 65 Upper Guinea
- 66 Nigeria-Cameroon
- 67 Congo
- 68 Zanzibar-Inhambane
- 69 Tongoland-Pondoland
- 70 Zambezi
- 71 Sahel
- 72 Sudan
- 73 Somalia-Ethiopia
- 74 South Arabia
- 75 Socotra
- 76 Oman
- 77 South Iran
- 78 Sindia
- 79 Namibia
- 80 Namaland
- 81 Western Cape
- 82 Karoo
- 83 St. Helena and Ascension
- 84 Eastern Madagascar
- 85 Western Madagascar
- 86 Southern and Southwestern Madagascar
- 87 Comoro
- 88 Mascarenes
- 89 Seychelles
- 95 South Burma
- 96 Andamans
- 97 South China
- 98 Thailand
- 99 North Indochina
- 100 Annam
- 101 South Indochina
- 102 Malaya
- 103 Borneo
- 104 Philippines
- 105 Sumatra
- 106 South Malesia
- 107 Celebes
- 108 Moluccas and West New Guinea
- 109 Papua
- 110 Bismarck Archipelago
- 111 New Hebrides
- 112 Fiji
- 113 Micronesia
- 114 Polynesia
- 115 Hawaii
- 116 New Caledonia
- 117 Central America
- 118 West Indies
- 119 Galápagos Islands
- 120 Guayana
- 128 Northern Andes
- 129 Central Andes
- 130 Cape Province
- 131 North Australia
- 132 Queensland
- 133 Southeast Australia
- 134 Tasmania
- 136 Eremaea
- 137 Juan Fernández
- 138 Northern Chile
- 139 Central Chile
- 140 Pampas
- 141 Patagonia
- 142 Tierra del Fuego
- 145 Lord Howe
- 146 Norfolk
- 147 Kermadec
- 148 Northern New Zealand
- 149 Central New Zealand
- 150 Southern New Zealand
- 151 Chatham
- 152 New Zealand Subantarctic Islands
- Good, Ronald, 1947. The Geography of Flowering Plants. Longmans, Green and Co, New York
- Takhtajan, Armen, 1986. Floristic Regions of the World. (translated by T.J. Crovello & A. Cronquist). University of California Press, Berkeley.