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The flora of India is one of the richest in the world due to the wide range of climate, topology and habitat in the country. There are estimated to be over 18,000 species of flowering plants in India, which constitute some 6-7 percent of the total plant species in the world.
A flora is a systematic enumeration of the plant species occurring in a given region. A flora may cover any suitable area from a Taluka to district, state, country or even a continent. The word "flora" also refers to publication made from systematic enumeration of the plant species. However, when flora is published as a book then it is written with capital ‘F’ as Flora. A Flora may contain anything from a simple list of the plants occurring in an area to a very detailed account of those plants. Flora comprises scientific names, common names, literature references, taxonomic descriptions, habit, habitats, geographical distribution, flowering times, fruiting times, economic or medicinal uses, important notes related to plants and illustrations. Floras often also give a method in the form of artificial key to enable the user to identify an unknown plant. Taxonomic and floristic studies on wild plant resources of the country and preparation of national, regional/state, district and significant national and international sites like RAMSAR, Biosphere reserve, National parks, Wildlife sanctuaries has been main objective of the Botanical Survey of India (BSI). Scientists of the headquarters and 14 regional centres have been exploring different regions of the country for the last seven decades to understand the magnitude of plant diversity at all levels for its conservation, management and utilization and their exhaustive collections (herbarium materials) are the baseline support for the preparation of flora. BSI provides baseline data of identity and geographical distribution of plants in the form of Flora that provides information to preserve and use its biodiversity. The publication of the new National Flora of India was started in 1978 in the form of Fascicles dealing with families, tribes and large genera of flowering plants as a Series 1 which also includes Flora of India, Series 2 for State Flora, Series 3 for District Flora and Series 4 for Miscellaneous publications on floristic account of special habitat or groups and other aspects dealing with plants.