South African National Plant Checklist: 2026 official yearly release.

This is the official yearly release of South African National Plant Checklist for 2026.

Updated versions of the Checklsit are released in March every year.

Scope

The Checklist contains accepted names and synonyms of all indigenous and naturalised (including invasive) plant taxa occurring in South Africa (currently excluding the Prince Edward Islands).

Nomenclature

Nomenclature in the Checklist accord with the rules of the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plant (Madrid Code):

    Turland, N.J., Wiersema, J.H., Barrie, F.R., Gandhi, K.N., Gravendyck, J., Greuter, W., Hawksworth, D.L., Herendeen, P.S., Klopper, R.R., Knapp, S., Kusber, W.-H., Li, D.-Z., May, T.W., Monro, A.M., Prado, J., Price, M.J., Smith, G.F. & Zamora Señoret, J.C. 2025. International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (Madrid Code). Regnum Vegetabile 162. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 288 pp. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226839479.001.0001

Statistics

This version of the Checklist contains:

    a total of 64,646 names, of which

    25,698 are accepted and inclusive names,

    38,740 synonyms (including 1,046 misapplied names),

    9 names for insufficiently known taxa, and

    199 unused autonyms.

This represents:

    21,653 species (23,621 taxa), of which

    20,308 species (22,253 taxa) are indigenous,

    1,339 species (1,363 taxa) are naturalised alien invasives, and

    6 species/taxa are regarded as cryptogenic.

The accepted taxa are from

    384 families and

    2,668 genera.

For more detailed statistics see the following document:

    Klopper, R.R. & Winter, P.J.D. 2026. South African National Plant Checklist statistics, version 1.2026. South African National Biodiversity Institute, Pretoria. Available at: http://opus.sanbi.org/handle/20.500.12143/6880.4

Definitions and abbreviations

Abbreviations used in certain fields of the Checklist and definitions for related terminology are provided in a separate sheet in this document.

How to cite this Checklist

South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI). 2026. The South African National Plant Checklist: 2026 official yearly release. Edited by Klopper, R.R. & Winter, P.J.D. Available online at http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12143/6880.4 (<add date accessed>). [DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19219973]

Additional documents

Documents containing information related to the Checklist are available on the SA National Plant Checklist OPUS page (http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12143/6880.4). These include:

* Reports by the SA Plant Checklist Committee regarding the yearly releases.

* Reports containing information on names added and updates made to the taxonomic status of names, and (from the 2025 release onwards) corrections in spelling or author citations made in the year preceding an annual release.

* South African Plant Family Classification System.

* Statistics on the number of species and taxa occurring in South Africa and the FSA-region.

* South African Plant Checklist Policy (contains the principles governing the Checklist).

The documents related to the current version of the Checklist is uploaded here together with the 2026 Checklist.

Format

The Checklist is available in spreadsheet format following BRAHMS fields, as well as in Darwin Core Archive format.

Version history

Dated archived versions of the Checklist (previous yearly releases from 2020 onwards) and other additional documents are available on the SA National Plant Checklist OPUS page (http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12143/6880).

Unique identifiers

Unique identifiers that were used for name records in previous database versions are included in the release to enable users to link their old identifiers to the name records.

Unique identifiers as used in international databases are also included in the release to enable linking of name records to global resources.

PRECIS_GenNo and PRECIS_SpNo: Unique identifier (Genus-Species number) of name record used in PRECIS (the precursor of BODATSA). Following migration to the BRAHMS platform in 2014, these GenSp numbers were no longer used and were replaced by the BRAHMS7 Species Number as unique identifier.

BRAHMS7_SpNum: Unique identifier of name record in BRAHMS ver. 7. This is the unique identifier for name records used in previous yearly releases (up to and including the 2022 annual release). From the 2023 annual release onwards the unique identifier is the RecordGUID.

RecordGUID: Unique identifier of name records as currently applied in BODATSA in BRAHMS ver. 8 (used from 2023 yearly release onwards).

IPNI_Id: Unique identifier of name as used by the International Plant Names Index (www.ipni.org). Adding these identifiers to BODATSA is an ongoing process and not all records currently have an IPNI identifier included. An 'x' in this field indicates that this name was not in IPNI at time of checking.

WFO_Id: Unique identifier of name as used by the World Flora Online PlantList (www.wfoplantlist.org). Adding these identifiers to BODATSA is an ongoing process and not all records currently have a WFO identifier included. An 'x' in this field indicates that this name was not in the WFO PlantList at time of checking.

Acknowledgements

A network of users, both from within and outside of SANBI, provided feedback on names and the classification in the Checklist during 2025–2026. 

We would like to thank all collaborators and users for their valuable input.

We also acknowledge the work of the authors of the publications that were incorporated into the Checklist.

See the following documents for more details.

   Klopper, R.R. & Winter, P.J.D. 2026. South African National Plant Checklist: Report on additions and updates made to the South African National Plant Checklist during the period 3/2025–3/2026. South African National Biodiversity Institute, Pretoria. Available at: http://opus.sanbi.org/handle/20.500.12143/6880.4

   South African National Plant Checklist Committee. 2026. Report regarding the 2026 official yearly release of the South African National Plant Checklist. Compiled by: Klopper, R.R. & Winter, P.J.D. South African National Biodiversity Institute, Pretoria. Available at: http://opus.sanbi.org/handle/20.500.12143/6880.4