One-Fifth Of World's Plants At Risk Of Extinction

Photo: Plants such as artemisia sweet wormwood provide valuable drugs - in this case, for malaria

From The BBC:

One-fifth of the world's plants - the foundation of life on Earth - are at risk of extinction, a study concludes.

Researchers have sampled almost 4,000 species, and conclude that 22% should be classified as "threatened" - the same alarming rate as for mammals.

A further 33% of species were too poorly understood to be assessed.

The analysis comes from the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, the Natural History Museum and International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Read more ....