China has 31,362 species of vascular plants, more than any country on the planet except Brazil and Colombia, and this number represents 8%-12% of the world diversity of vascular plants. With the two largest completed floristic projects in the world, a full documentation of the vascular plants of China has been published twice over the past 54 years: the Chineselanguage Flora Reipublicae Popularis Sinicae (FRPS), 1959(FRPS), -2004, and the English-language Flora of China (FOC), 1994(FOC), -2013 With the advent of molecular phylogenetics the past half century has witnessed dramatical changes of classifications of vascular plants. In this paper, we compare the circumscriptions of all families of vascular plants occurring within China in FRPS, FOC, and the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG) III system when applicable, and summarize familial assignments of all controversial genera in the different classifications. Such comparison to some extent reflects the history of classification of vascular plants and differences between classical morphology-based classifications and modern DNA (mainly chloroplast) sequence data-based classifications of vascular plants.Keywords APG III; Englerian system; familial assignments of genera; flowering plants; FOC; FRPS; pteridophytes (Tables S1-S8) Version of Record plants in 3328 genera and 312 families, of which 2129 species are ferns and lycophytes, 237 are gymnosperms, and 28,996 are angiosperms (Wu & al., 2013d). The FOC project took 25 years of endeavor by 478 authors and 324 artists from 30 countries (Wu & al., 2013d).
Supplementary Material The Electronic SupplementIn order to facilitate comparison with FRPS, the decision was made at the start of the FOC project to follow the modified Englerian family sequence for seed plants used in FRPS (Editorial Committee of FRPS, 1961-2002, the only major change being to move the monocotyledons to the end of the sequence. Otherwise the policy was to keep to the FRPS system and only draw attention to any alternatives in comments after the family description (e.g., Liliaceae and Amaryllidaceae, Wu & Raven, 2000b: 73, 264). Only in some of the later volumes were there significant changes reflecting the widespread acceptance of APG III (e.g., the aquatic monocots, Wu & al., 2012b: 84-119). This was not the case for the pteridophytes (or monilophytes: lycophytes and ferns) where the sequence and family delimitations follow exactly the most recent system of Christenhusz & al. (2011), a modified Smith & al. (2006) system, and not the partly arbitrary sequence used in FRPS.In this paper, we compare the classifications of vascular plants of China in the FRPS, FOC, and APG III systems in the form of tables (Electr. Suppl.: Tables S1-S8). The need for this comparison of classifications comes from two directions, namely consideration of the value of plants as indicated by their taxonomy, and the history of plant taxonomy in China. Classifications are valued for their predictive value and modern molecular methods are the latest tools in our...