This database, the most comprehensive resource of its type for Gabon, contains over 65,000 specimens, about 90% of all plants known to have been collected in Gabon.

This database of the Plants of Gabon is the result of a cooperation of the herbaria of Libreville, Wageningen, Missouri, Paris and Brussels.

The Plants of Gabon database has been developed using BRAHMS by the herbarium of the Biosystematics Group at Wageningen University, which forms the Wageningen University Branch of the National Herbarium of The Netherlands.

The Wageningen Herbarium focuses on plants from tropical Africa, in particular those of the wet forest areas of West and Central Africa.

Gabon is one of the the most heavily forested countries in the world, with 82% of the land surface covered. Next to these extensive forests, Gabon has some savannah areas in the South-West and the South-East and an additional small central savannah. Along the Atlantic coast a coastal savannah is present with a quite unique flora. Especially in the Northern regions small inselbergs are scattered through the forest, which contain a specific inselberg flora. Botanical exploration of Gabon is coordinated from the National Herbarium of Gabon. In 2005 this National Herbarium moved to a new building at the edge of the Sibang Arboretum, a semi natural forest on the east side of Libreville.

Until now, just over 5000 (plant) species, of which about 10% are endemic or near-endemic, have been recorded in Gabon. Each year, new species for the country and to science are found. A printed checklist of these Gabonese plants, including specimen citation, floristic status and an analysis of collection patterns and species distribution was prepared in Wageningen and has appeared in 2006.

A project, "Biodiversité Botanique du Gabon" to recapacitate the national herbarium of Gabon, paid by the Dutch development agency DGIS, was ran by the Biosystematics Group from 1999-2005 and facilitated part of the work undertaken for creating this database.

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For questions on this Plants of Gabon database please refer to Jan Wieringa.