By Justin Reis
The world's number of flowering plant species is estimated at 400,000 after eliminating more than 600,000 from the list due to overlap of many of the same plant species.
Scientists from the US and UK have determined that after centuries of identifying new plant species, many are duplicates and the actual results will be released later this year, The Guardian reported.
Knowing the exact number will be important for food, nutrition, and medicine reasons, one of the project's researchers mentioned.
"On average, one plant might have between two and three names, " Alan Paton, a researcher from the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London stated.
This is economically important because of the high use of plant materials.
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