Review: Training tomorrow’s plant taxonomists

Reading this review brought to mind some well-known lyrics starting “You don’t know what you’ve got …”  Joni Mitchell followed with “till its gone,” whilst Blink-182 suggested “till it’s almost gone”. A major challenge for plant scientists today is to find out what we have before its gone, and hopefully use this knowledge to not let it go. However, knowing what we’ve got requires the special skills of plant taxonomists, and, as Simões et al. write, there is a global shortage of those skills. The authors undertook a global comprehensive survey of the discipline, its training, and its resources, and found several issues of concern. For example, half of all countries, including many with uncharted biodiversity, have fewer than 10 active plant taxonomists. The authors review their data and from it build a comprehensive set of recommendations for how to improve plant taxonomy training and ensure that these vital skills, and the plants they are employed to record, are not lost. (Summary by Mary Williams @PlantTeaching.bsky.social) Trends Plant Sci. 10.1016/j.tplants.2025.08.019