This website provides taxonomic information for southern African plants. You can search the data, view and download results, and see related information from PlantZAfrica and Floristic resources.

Searching the online checklist:

You can pick any combination of criteria on the search form. For example, to find Ericas found in the Eastern Cape you would type 'Erica' in the Genus search box and select 'EC: Eastern Cape' in the Distribution list. Clicking on the 'Search' button at the bottom of the form will give you the matching species.

Search results are listed in alphabetic order according to family, genus and species. You can change the sort order by clicking the sort buttons ( ) next to the Family and Species columns.

You can download your results in text ( ) or comma-delimited CSV ( ) format by clicking on a download button in the panel on the right.

Using taxonomic criteria:

On the search screen, you can 'drill-down' from plant family to individual species by selecting a family and allowing the genera to load automatically in the dropdown below. You can repeat this process by selecting a particular genus and allowing the species list to load.

If you do not know the family to which a particular genus belongs, you can simply enter a genus name or a part of its name (using the '*' as a wildcard) in the Genus search box. Clicking the 'Find genus' button will list the genera matching your entry. If only one genus matches then it will be automatically used to populate the Species drop-down and the Family. If more than one genus matches your entry, you will be prompted to pick from these options by the drop-down labelled '[Select genus]'. Note that at most 1000 matches will be listed.

Using distribution criteria:

You can review the list of provinces and countries below. Note that some species may be coded against old names for places, particularly if records are too vague to apply definitive current placenames.

You can also search by entering a quarter-degree grid cell, which applies to the actual PRECIS herbarium specimens collected for a species. Grid references comprise latitude (2 digits), longitude (2 digits) and 2 letters (each A-D) indicating the degree quadrant and the quarter degree quadrant respectively. Quadrants are labelled A-D clockwise from NW (A) to SW (D).

Please note that threatened plant species (e.g. Cycads) will not be shown in Grid-based search results.

Using life history criteria:

You can select various life history criteria. Note that the data for some plants records has not been fully captured yet (in the results these missing entries are shown as '[?]'). If you want to include records with missing details in your results then check the relevant box ( ) adjacent to the criteria you are using. This applies to lifecycle, lifeform, plant height and altitude range.

Selecting the format of the results:

You can select the amount of detail to be displayed in the search results by using the options ( ) under "Pick the type of results you would like to see". You can view a simple list of species names, a summary list which includes some life history and distributional details, or a full listing including synonyms and references for each species.

Checking the "Include synonymous taxa" option will include the old names of plants in the results listing, with references to their current names.

Examples of species information:

Family: plant family
Species: species name and '=species in current use' if it is a synonym
Synonyms: synonyms and references
Life cycle: Annual, biennial or perennial.
Life form: Bryophyte, climber, dwarf shrub, epiphyte, geophyte, graminoid, herb, hydrophyte, lithophyte, parasite, scrambler, shrub, succulent, suffrutex or tree.
Height of plant: range in metres
Altitude where plants occur: range in metres
Distribution: Countries and RSA provinces abbreviated as follows:

B	Botswana
CP	Cape Province (old code)
EC	Eastern Cape
FS	Free State
FSA	Southern Africa Flora
G	Gauteng
KZN	KwaZulu-Natal
L	Lesotho
LIM	Limpopo
M	Mpumalanga
N	Namibia
NC	Northern Cape
NW	Northwest
OFS	Orange Free State (old code)
S	Swaziland
SA	South Africa
SNA	Southern Africa
TVL	Transvaal
WC	Western Cape

Where current distribution records are unknown because of old herbarium collections with incomplete information, abbreviations of old province are given, for example Cape Province (‘CP’).

Links to other resources:

Some results include the PZA icon ( ). Click it to see the entry for this plant in SANBI's PlantZAfrica infobase which contains the "Plant of the Week" webpages.

Some results include the Floristic icon ( ). Click it to see the entry for this plant in SANBI's Regional Floristic infobase which contains published information on families, genera and species. You can also access this resource from the search page.

To report a bug please email the project team. To provide feedback on the data please email the PRECIS data officer.