The shortage of reliable primary taxonomic data limits the description of biological taxa and the understanding of biodiversity patterns and processes, complicating biogeographical, ecological, and evolutionary studies. This deficit creates a significant taxonomic impediment to biodiversity research and conservation planning. The taxonomic impediment and the biodiversity crisis are widely recognized, highlighting the urgent need for reliable taxonomic data. Over the past decade, numerous countries worldwide have devoted considerable effort to Target 1 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC), which called for the preparation of a working list of all known plant species by 2010 and an online world Flora by 2020. Brazil is a megadiverse country, home to more of the world's known plant species than any other country. Despite that, Flora Brasiliensis, concluded in 1906, was the last comprehensive treatment of the Brazilian flora. The lack of accurate estimates of the number of species of algae, fungi, and plants occurring in Brazil contributes to the prevailing taxonomic impediment and delays progress towards the GSPC targets. Over the past 12 years, a legion of taxonomists motivated to meet Target 1 of the GSPC, worked together to gather and integrate knowledge on the algal, plant, and fungal diversity of Brazil. Overall, a team of about 980 taxonomists joined efforts in a highly collaborative project that used cybertaxonomy to prepare an updated Flora of Brazil, showing the power of scientific collaboration to reach ambitious goals. This paper presents an overview of the Brazilian Flora 2020 and provides taxonomic and spatial updates on the algae, fungi, and plants found in one of the world's most biodiverse countries. We further identify collection gaps and summarize future goals that extend beyond 2020. Our results show that Brazil is home to 46,975 native species of algae, fungi, and plants, of which 19,669 are endemic to the country. The data compiled to date suggests that the Atlantic Rainforest might be the most diverse Brazilian domain for all plant groups except gymnosperms, which are most diverse in the Amazon. However, scientific knowledge of Brazilian diversity is still unequally distributed, with the Atlantic Rainforest and the Cerrado being the most intensively sampled and studied biomes in the country. In times of “scientific reductionism”, with botanical and mycological sciences suffering pervasive depreciation in recent decades, the first online Flora of Brazil 2020 significantly enhanced the quality and quantity of taxonomic data available for algae, fungi, and plants from Brazil. This project also made all the information freely available online, providing a firm foundation for future research and for the management, conservation, and sustainable use of the Brazilian funga and flora.

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ResumoMerremia Dennst. ex Endl. compreende aproximadamente 60 espécies, amplamente distribuídas nos trópicos e subtrópicos de ambos os hemisférios. Das 14 espécies do gênero conhecidas para o Brasil, nove foram confirmadas para a Região Sul: M. cissoides (Lam.) Hallier f., M. digitata (Spreng.) Hallier f. var. digitata, M. digitata var. elongata (Choisy) D.F.Austin & Staples, M. dissecta (Jacq.) Hallier f., M. hassleriana (Chodat) Hassl., M. macrocalyx (Ruiz & Pav.) O'Donell, M. tomentosa (Choisy) Hallier f., M. tuberosa (L.) Rendle e M. umbellata (L.) Hallier f. São fornecidos chave de identificação, descrições morfológicas, dados de distribuição geográfica, hábitat e ilustrações dos táxons. Merremia hassleriana constitui uma nova ocorrência para o Paraná. Palavras-chave: morfologia, Paraná, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, taxonomia. Abstract Merremia Dennst. ex Endl. comprises about 60 species widely distributed in the tropics and subtropics of both hemispheres. Among the 14 species occurring in Brazil, nine were confirmed for the Southern region: M. cissoides (Lam.) Hallier f., M. digitata (Spreng.) Hallier f. var. digitata, M. digitata var. elongata (Choisy) D.F.Austin & Staples, M. dissecta (Jacq.) Hallier f., M. hassleriana (Chodat) Hassl., M. macrocalyx (Ruiz & Pav.) O'Donell, M. tomentosa (Choisy) Hallier f., M. tuberosa (L.) Rendle, and M. umbellata (L.) Hallier f. Analytical key, morphologic descriptions, geographical data, habitat and illustrations of the taxa of Merremia in Southern Brazil are provided. Merremia hassleriana is a new record for Paraná State.

Most studies concerning climbing plants have focused on lianas, forest ecosystems, and tropical regions. Thus, the majority of existing information is not relevant to all climbing plants (lianas and vines) or all ecoregions of the world (forested and non-forested). We provide an update on floristic and distributional data available for climbing plants in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil's southernmost state, which is located within subtropical and temperate zones and includes a variety of forest and non-forest vegetation types. A total of 448 climbing plant species were confirmed and documented by voucher specimens, revealing a diversity similar to that registered for trees in the state (533). The significant contribution of climbing species to the regional flora, the differences in floristic composition and species richness among the state's eight vegetation types, and the high number of endangered species found in this extratropical region reveal the requirement to expand studies of climbing plants to include environments beyond tropical forests. Furthermore, the importance of herbaceous climbing species in subtropical and temperate floras demonstrates that they should be included in ecological studies of climbing plants, and that future analyses could detect unique or divergent patterns between herbaceous and woody climbers.