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Version 4 of the MPNS Resource
We have recently updated the MPNS resource to Version 4. We update the MPNS resource quarterly, to keep up to date with changes in taxonomy and nomenclature, and to expand our coverage of plants used medicinally.
Version 4 of the resource covers:
- 13,863 taxa, that belong to 344 families - 200 more taxa than had been included in the earlier version
- 20,828 different scientific names used in the medicinal plant literature (corresponding to 43,370 individual records)
- 46,115 unique non-scientific names - including 2,272 unique pharmaceutical names
Full details of different versions of the MPNS resource are available on our website.
The resource is available to search through the MPNS portal and is used to provide a suite of information services.
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APG IV - Latest classification of angiosperms
Changes in our understanding of the relationship between plants often leads to changes in the names of plants. The Angiosperm Phylogeny Group, an international group of systematic botanists, has recently published 'APG IV' which provides a high level view of the taxonomy of flowering plants. MPNS source databases largely follow APG IV already, so there are unlikely to be many changes to the families of the plants we include. Though, as ever, as names of individual plants are changed in line with new classifications they will be updated in our portal.
You can find out more about the work that went into APG IV in a recent Kew Science blog post written by Mike Fay who contributed to the APG update.
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State of the World's Plants - Report & Symposium
Last week Kew hosted an international symposium to coincide with the launch of a pioneering new report: State of the World’s Plants. The report provides, for the first time, a baseline assessment of our current knowledge on the diversity of plants on earth, their uses, the global threats these plants currently face, and the policies dealing with them.
The MPNS resource was one of several references on medicinal use that informed the 'Useful Plants' section of the report. Medicinal plants are the largest category of use, with over 17,800 species recorded. As we add new references to the MPNS resource we will cover more species that will help us reach this figure.
The report is available to browse online and download as PDF.
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