Flora of Western Australia

The flora of Western Australia comprises 9,437 published native vascular plant species of 1,543 genera within 226 families; there are also 1,171 naturalised alien or invasive plant species more commonly known as weeds. There are an estimated 150,000 cryptogam species or nonvascular plants which include lichens, and fungi although only 1,786 species have been published, with 948 algae and 672 lichen the majority.

Indigenous Australians have a long history with the flora of Western Australia. They have for over 50,000 years obtained detailed information on most plants. The information includes its uses as sources for food, shelter, tools and medicine. As Indigenous Australians passed the knowledge along orally or by example, most of this information has been lost, along many of the names they gave the flora. It was not until Europeans started to explore Western Australia that systematic written details of the flora commenced.

The first scientific collection of flora from Western Australia was by William Dampier near Shark Bay and in the Dampier Archipelago in 1699. This collection is housed in the Fielding Druce Herbarium; of the 24 species collected, 15 were published by John Ray and Leonard Plukenet. There were two species of Western Australian flora published in 1768 by Burman that are thought to have been collected by Willem de Vlamingh during his exploration of the area around the Swan River in 1697.

In September 1791 Archibald Menzies collected specimens around the King George Sound area while on the Vancouver Expedition. French botanist Jacques Labillardiere in December 1792 as part of the d'Entrecasteaux expedition collected specimens in the Esperance area before the expedition went on to explore parts of Tasmania. Between 1801–1803 Jean Baptiste Leschenault de la Tour was the botanist on Baudins exploration of the WA coast. Labillardiere used the specimens collected to publish the two volume Novae Hollandiae Plantarum Specimen in 1804 and 1807. Of the species originally named by Labillardiere, 105 were still in use in 2000.

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