For scientists, students and the curious.
Clear, sourced articles and thought leadership that open up the science, the law and the story of Madagascar's living heritage. Free to read, for everyone.
A world apart
EcologyWhy Madagascar's flora is like nowhere else
Millions of years of isolation, and what it produced.
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BiomeThe eastern rainforest
The green spine of the island, and the life it holds.
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BiomeThe spiny desert
A botanical world found nowhere else on Earth.
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BiomeThe limestone karst (Tsingy)
Forests of stone where every canyon is a separate island.
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BiomeMadagascar's ultramafic soils
Plants that fill their leaves with nickel, on ground that poisons most life.
Read →Access, done right
GovernanceWhat the Nagoya Protocol means
Access and benefit-sharing, in plain language.
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EthicsFair benefit-sharing
How value flows back to source communities.
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EthicsFree, prior and informed consent
Why community consent comes first, always.
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HistoryThe rose periwinkle
The Madagascar plant that reshaped the rules of fair access.
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EthicsBuilding capacity in Madagascar
Why the benefit that outlasts every cheque is skill.
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GovernanceDigital data and the Cali Fund
Sharing the benefit when it is data, not a plant, that is used.
Read →The record, up close
MethodWhat "multi-omics" means
Reading a plant at several levels at once, and why it is needed.
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SpeciesSpecies of interest
A closer look at Madagascar's remarkable plants.
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DataMadagascar in the global league tables
How its endemic flora ranks against the world.
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PortalExplore the full record
Search 14,356 species in the Flora Portal.
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Where the flora knowledge lives
The Flora Portal stands on the shoulders of the great herbaria and open data sources. These are the institutions and resources we draw on, and that anyone can explore, with a focus on Madagascar and the other countries we work in.
Malagasy institutions & herbaria
PBZT / Tsimbazaza (TAN)
Parc Botanique et Zoologique de Tsimbazaza, Antananarivo. Madagascar's national herbarium and taxonomic authority.
Madagascar Catalogue
The Catalogue of the Vascular Plants of Madagascar, maintained by Missouri Botanical Garden with Malagasy partners.
Kew Madagascar Conservation Centre
Kew's in-country programme (KMCC), documenting and conserving Madagascar's plants and fungi.
FOFIFA (TEF)
The national centre for applied research in rural development, holding the TEF forestry herbarium.
Global names & classification
Plants of the World Online (POWO)
Kew's authoritative record of accepted names, distributions and descriptions for the world's flora.
Tropicos
One of the world's largest botanical databases, and the backbone of the Madagascar Catalogue.
International Plant Names Index (IPNI)
The registry of plant name publications, with the permanent identifiers used across systems.
World Flora Online
An open, consensus taxonomic backbone for all known plant species, built by a global consortium.
Biodiversity & genomic data
GBIF — Madagascar
The Global Biodiversity Information Facility: hundreds of millions of open occurrence records worldwide.
iNaturalist — Madagascar
Research-grade field observations, the strongest modern layer of contemporary distribution data.
GenBank — NCBI
The US National Center for Biotechnology Information's open archive of genetic sequence data.
IUCN Red List
The global standard for the extinction-risk status of species, including Madagascar's threatened flora.
Herbaria holding Madagascar's plants
Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle
The largest single collection of Madagascar's plants, including many irreplaceable type specimens.
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
One of the world's foremost herbaria, and the home of POWO, WCVP and IPNI.
Missouri Botanical Garden
Decades of Madagascar fieldwork and the institutional home of the Madagascar Catalogue.
Conservatoire et Jardin botaniques
Geneva's historic collections, a major holder of African and Malagasy specimens.
A searchable FAQ.
Plain answers on the flora, the Portal, the data and the ethics, written for people and readable by machines.