The center for plant conservation will develop a national framework for reconciling plant taxonomy

The Institute of Museum and Library Services awarded the Center for Plant Conservation Inc. $479,120 on September 1, 2026, under the National Leadership Grants program (CFDA 45.312) to develop a national framework for reconciling plant taxonomy.

The Center for Plant Conservation will establish and test a replicable process for building consensus taxonomy by partnering with botanical and biodiversity data organizations. The project will produce annual checklist releases for vascular plants of the United States, create a permanent public archive documenting proposals, discussions, voting outcomes, and decision rationales, and generate a methodological model for how biodiversity communities can govern contested scientific information in an open, durable, and scalable way. These outputs will provide federal and state agencies, herbaria, botanic gardens, conservation organizations, researchers, and educators with reliable and consistent scientific resources to inform plant conservation.

The award funds performance at the Center's location in Escondido, California, with a period of performance running through August 31, 2029.

Although plant names are foundational to research, conservation, collections management, land stewardship, regulation, and public communication, the united states currently lacks a single, broadly accepted checklist that integrates differing taxonomic opinions in a consistent and publicly accessible way. The center for plant conservation will partner with botanical and biodiversity data organizations to establish and test a replicable process for building consensus taxonomy. The project will produce annual checklist releases for the vascular plants of the united states, create a permanent public archive of proposals, discussions, voting outcomes, and decision rationales, and generate a methodological model for how biodiversity communities can govern contested scientific information in an open, durable, and scalable way. As a result, federal and state agencies, herbaria, botanic gardens, conservation organizations, researchers, and educators will have access to reliable and consistent scientific resources that inform plant conservation.