Flowering Plants of Bangka Island: Native and Introduced

A study of seven different habitats was carried out to update the flowering plant diversity in Bangka Island, Indonesia, over 150 years. Data on native, introduced, and endemic species and their uses is an important database for conservation management and bioprospecting facing the post-tin-mining era. Voucher-based data were collected from transects and plots in 139 villages in the last nineteen years and enriched with secondary publications. The island supports 1,524 taxa from 32 families, 184 genera, 353 species, and 5 infraspecific taxa of Liliopsida plants, and 124 families, 524 genera, 1,114 species, and 52 infraspecific taxa of Magnoliopsida plants of terrestrial, aquatic, mangrove, coastal, and tin spoils in the island. As many as 594 species (39%) grow in lowland habitats and are mostly native, and 14 species are critically endangered. A quarter of the flora is naturalised species for their timber, fruit, flower, and revegetating tin spoils. A total of 366 native and naturalised taxa from 91 families are reported for their uses as ornamental plants, medicine, staple food, edible fruits, vegetables, spices, furniture, construction, etc., for which leaves are mostly used. While not all of Kurz’s 1864 list was recorded, this study documented an increase of 637 species (71%) to that list. The intensive and extensive exploration and re-identification of the unidentified specimens might reveal more species to add to the current list. Evaluating exotic species in the wild and bioprospecting become two of the main priorities for future conservation management and economics especially in the post-tin mining era.