Question: how many plants are there

Lily Asquith answered on 17 Jun 2010:

There are about 375,000 different species of plant that we know about. There are probably lots more that we haven’t even discovered yet.

Unfortunately plant species are going extinct all the time, largely due to logging companies bulldozing vast areas of rainforest. This may not seem like such a big deal as an animal going extinct, but when you consider how many medicines are derived from plants it becomes shocking.

Somewhere out there could be a species of plant with the power to cure malaria, about to have its last member crushed beneath the boot of a lumberjack.