Botánica
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Why Peru? About this atlas ↑

An open-data atlas of Peru’s flora and fungi

What grows where in Peru?

Click a department, a family, an origin or a decade. Every view answers together, and the address bar keeps the question so you can share it.

Kew’s checklist lists 21,585 vascular plant species for Peru, and 34.9% of them grow nowhere else. Yet 25.7% have no GBIF record placed in any department: what we know and where we have looked are two different maps.

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Peru, by the numbers

Every number is computed from the data this atlas ships with. Each one links to its source.

  • 21,585 source

    vascular plant species in the WCVP checklist for Peru

  • 34.9% source

    are endemic: found only in Peru

    7,541 species

  • 27.9% source

    of Peru’s flora was classified endemic by the Libro Rojo (5,509 taxa)

    this atlas’ WCVP checklist counts 34.9 endemic (7,541 of 21,585) — a different taxonomy and a newer snapshot explain the gap

  • 25.7% source

    of the checklist has no GBIF record placed in any department

    5,550 species: known to occur, never mapped here

  • 60.1% source

    of all cleaned GBIF records come from Loreto, Pasco and Cusco

    out of 1,269,879 records

  • 17 source

    megadiverse countries in the world — Peru is one of them

  • 6,768 source

    metres: from the Pacific coast to the summit of Huascarán, Peru’s highest point

  • 18.38% source

    of Peru’s land is protected: 78 national protected areas, 38 regional and 145 private conservation areas

  • 2,462 source

    vascular epiphyte species recorded — the third-highest count of any country

    including 1,606 epiphytic orchid species

  • 4,000 source

    Amazonian tree species are thought to remain undescribed

    at today’s pace, cataloguing them would take about 300 years

Names through the centuries

Milestones read from the year each species was first described (WCVP, the basionym when there is one), merged with the expeditions and catalogues that found them.

  1. 1777–1788 source

    Ruiz, Pavón & Dombey’s royal expedition: more than 3,000 specimens collected and about 500 new species described.

  2. 1794 source

    Their Prodromus names the earliest Ruiz & Pavón species in this checklist: 8.

  3. 1798 source

    Their Flora Peruviana et Chilensis names the busiest year: 322 of the 611 Ruiz & Pavón species in this checklist.

  4. 1850–1890 source

    Antonio Raimondi surveys Peru; his six-volume El Perú is still cited today.

  5. 1901–1948 source

    August Weberbauer, father of Peruvian phytogeography, publishes Die Pflanzenwelt der peruanischen Anden.

  6. 1930s source

    The decade with the most descriptions: 1,701 species.

  7. 1993 source

    Brako & Zarucchi publish Peru’s first modern national catalogue: more than 17,000 seed plants.

  8. 2000–2025 source

    2,649 species described in these years.

  9. 2006 source

    The Libro Rojo assesses Peru’s endemic flora for the first time.

  10. 2017 source

    Ulloa Ulloa et al., in Science, catalogue 124,993 vascular plant species across the Americas.

  11. Jun 22, 2026 source

    The WCVP and GBIF snapshots this atlas is built on.

  12. Sep 22, 2026 changelog

    This atlas: v1.0.0 on Sep 22, 2026; v2.0.0 and v3.0.0 on Sep 24, 2026; v3.1.0 on Sep 25, 2026.

How the atlas works

WCVP says which species

occur in Peru: a checklist of 21,585 species.

and

GBIF says where

they were recorded: 1,269,879 cleaned occurrence records.

The atlas counts a species in a department

only when both agree: 16,035 species are placed in at least one.

Records are not richness

Loreto has 5.1× the records of Ucayali, yet Ucayali has more species with records. Many records mean a place is well collected, not that it is richer.

Records

Loreto 399,410
Ucayali 77,631

Species with records

Loreto 5,821
Ucayali 6,541

Now ask your own question

Pick a department, a family, an origin or a decade: every view answers together.

Explore the atlas

Explore

Peru’s plants and fungi by place, group, origin and date. Every chart filters the others.

All of Peru · no filters→ 21,585
21,585species
257families
73orders
7,541endemic to Peru
1906median year described

Where

How to read this: The more intense a department’s colour, the more species have at least one GBIF record there (places collected more show more). This chart ignores its own filter, so every option stays visible to switch.

Tap a department to filter everything. Shift-click (or “Compare”) to add a second department.

Colour = speciesno records

Sources: GBIF.org occurrence download, Fungi, Peru (22 June 2026 · 14,788 records) doi:10.15468/dl.uh7bd4 · GBIF Backbone Taxonomy (fungi: Index Fungorum) doi:10.15468/39omei

Sources: WCVP, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (snapshot 2026-06-22) doi:10.15468/6h8ucr · GBIF.org occurrence download, Plantae, Peru (22 June 2026 · 1,287,722 records) doi:10.15468/dl.x4m2bc

Department detail

How to read this: Pick a department here or on the map to see its species and top families, then add a second one to see which species they share.

Numbers are species. Comparison bar: only in A in both only in B

Sources: GBIF.org occurrence download, Fungi, Peru (22 June 2026 · 14,788 records) doi:10.15468/dl.uh7bd4 · GBIF Backbone Taxonomy (fungi: Index Fungorum) doi:10.15468/39omei

Sources: WCVP, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (snapshot 2026-06-22) doi:10.15468/6h8ucr · GBIF.org occurrence download, Plantae, Peru (22 June 2026 · 1,287,722 records) doi:10.15468/dl.x4m2bc

Families

How to read this: Each tile is a family: the bigger the tile, the more species it has here, and tiles of the same colour belong to the same order. Click a tile to filter everything by it. This chart ignores its own filter, so every option stays visible to switch.

+233 other families · 7,762 species

Tile area = number of species · colour = order (APG IV)Tile area = number of species · colour = order (GBIF Backbone)

Sources: GBIF.org occurrence download, Fungi, Peru (22 June 2026 · 14,788 records) doi:10.15468/dl.uh7bd4 · GBIF Backbone Taxonomy (fungi: Index Fungorum) doi:10.15468/39omei

Sources: WCVP, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (snapshot 2026-06-22) doi:10.15468/6h8ucr · GBIF.org occurrence download, Plantae, Peru (22 June 2026 · 1,287,722 records) doi:10.15468/dl.x4m2bc · APG IV 2016, Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 181: 1–20 doi:10.1111/boj.12385

Origin

How to read this: How many species live only in Peru (endemic), grow here naturally and elsewhere too (native), or were brought by people (introduced). Click a bar to filter. This chart ignores its own filter, so every option stays visible to switch.

Bar length = number of species

Sources: GBIF.org occurrence download, Fungi, Peru (22 June 2026 · 14,788 records) doi:10.15468/dl.uh7bd4 · GBIF Backbone Taxonomy (fungi: Index Fungorum) doi:10.15468/39omei

Sources: WCVP, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (snapshot 2026-06-22) doi:10.15468/6h8ucr · GBIF.org occurrence download, Plantae, Peru (22 June 2026 · 1,287,722 records) doi:10.15468/dl.x4m2bc

Growth form

How to read this: What the plants look like: trees, shrubs, herbs, climbers… grouped from the WCVP description of each species. Click a bar to filter. This chart ignores its own filter, so every option stays visible to switch.

(no data)5,905

Bar length = number of species

Sources: GBIF.org occurrence download, Fungi, Peru (22 June 2026 · 14,788 records) doi:10.15468/dl.uh7bd4 · GBIF Backbone Taxonomy (fungi: Index Fungorum) doi:10.15468/39omei

Sources: WCVP, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (snapshot 2026-06-22) doi:10.15468/6h8ucr · GBIF.org occurrence download, Plantae, Peru (22 June 2026 · 1,287,722 records) doi:10.15468/dl.x4m2bc

When they were described

How to read this: Each column is a decade: its height is how many of today’s species science first described in those ten years. Drag across columns to filter a period. This chart ignores its own filter, so every option stays visible to switch.

Year the species was first described (WCVP): the original name (basionym) when it was later moved to another genus. Drag across decades to select a range.

318 without a year

Column height = species described per decade

Source: WCVP, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (snapshot 2026-06-22) doi:10.15468/6h8ucr