Floral trouble
as many as half the world's plant species may qualify as threatened with extinction under the World Conservation Union (iucn) classification scheme, indicates a new study. Conducted by Nigel Pitman of us-based Duke University and Peter Jorgensen of the Missouri Botanical Garden, the study indicates that the iucn Red List for plants takes into account flora species of only a few tropical countries, thereby making it "difficult to assess the true scale of the global conservation crisis for plants'.
According to the researchers, the percentage of the world's plants threatened with extinction could be as high as 47 per cent