Author Description

This updated checklist of the wild vascular plants of Finland incorporates numerous floristic, taxonomic and nomenclatural changes. Spontaneous (native) and alien taxa, both resident and ephemeral, are included. Species, subspecies, nothospecies (with hybrid parents), nothosubspecies, hybrids and commonly recognized varieties, as well as cultivars and Groups of cultivated plants found as escapes, are listed. Informal groups serving for at least a partial identification are included when considered practical. Both the Finnish and Swedish preferred vernacular names, including a great number of new Finnish ones, are provided for most of the taxa. Synonymic scientific names from important floras and checklists of Finland and neighbouring territories are mentioned. The list contains 5720 accepted names (5579 with certain occurrence in Finland). 4242 of these (4112 with certain occurrence) are "terminal taxa", ie. taxa without child taxa. The number of species verified from Finland comes to 3236, including 555 species of large apomictic groups (Ranunculus auricomus s. lat., Hieracium, Pilosella, Taraxacum), and there are 363 subspecies, 171 varieties, and 597 hybrids, of which 116 are treated as nothospecies, verified from the country. In addition, there are altogether 133 species, subspecies or hybrids with only unconfirmed records from Finland. The species, nothospecies, subspecies and varieties are provided with an evaluation of historical status and degree of cultivated origin, except in Ranunculus auricomus group s. lat., Hieracium and Pilosella. Of the evaluated species, 1010 are categorized as spontaneous and 1828 as aliens. 189 of the alien species are considered archaeophytic, 377 as naturalized neophytes (resident new aliens) and the remaining 1265 as casual aliens (ephemeral new aliens). Eight of the old spontaneous or archaeophytic species are regarded as extinct or probably extinct, and one third of the ephemeral aliens have been recorded only before 1980. Of