A dataset on catalogue of alien plants in China

It is an important basis for the research on the prevention and early warning mechanism of alien invasive plants in China to figure out the types of alien plants in China, where they come from, how to enter China, what kind of groups of these alien plants are, as well as their biological and ecological characteristics. The information of alien plants recorded in Flora of China (Chinese edition), Flora of China (English edition) and their records in the Chinese province flora is very limited since various reason. At present, there is no complete database reflecting the information of alien plants in China. By integrating materials related to alien plants in recent years, and textual research on the origin and added habits of alien plants through literature, and then using computer network, databases and big data analysis technical means, after information treatment and taxonomic correction, with reconstruction of the classification, this paper finally determines the species directory data set of the book. There are 14710 data in this set, with 14710 groups of Chinese alien plants belonging to 3233 genera and 283 families (including 13401 original species, 332 hybrids, 2 chimeras, 458 subspecies, 503 varieties and 14 forms). Each taxa includes basic information such as categories of plants, Chinese family, family name, Chinese genus, genus, Chinese name, alias, scientific name, author, survival status, survival time, growth status, country or region of origin and province of Chinese distribution. The data set shows that alien plants have accounted for a considerable proportion in the composition of the Chinese plant species (at present, there are 37464 groups of native plants in China (including infraspecies), and with 14710 alien groups, the proportion of exotic plants is as high as 28.19%). In terms of survival status, cultivated plants account for 91% of all exotic plants, escape plants account for 7.36%, naturalized plant account for 6.69% and invasive plants account for 2.66%; The analysis of life forms shows that perennial groups account for the vast majority of alien plants (13625 species, about 92.6%), and the number of herbs (8937 species, about 60.8%) is more than that of trees (2752 species, about 18.7%), shrubs (4916 species, about 33.4%) as well as other life forms. Most of the alien plants in China were from North America (4242 species), Africa (3707 species), South America (3645 species), Asia (3102 species), Europe (1690 species) and Oceania (1305 species). The top 10 provinces and cities in China with more exotic plants are Taiwan (6122 species), Beijing (5244 species), Fujian (3667 species), Guangdong (3544 species), Yunnan (3404 species), Shanghai (2924 species), Jiangsu (2183 species), Jiangxi (1789 species), Zhejiang (1658 species) and Hubei (973 species). This data set is the first comprehensive and systematic collation of alien plants in China. It can be used as a reference for research related to alien plants, as well as basic data for plant diversity research. It can also be used as a reference book for people in agriculture, forestry, grassland, gardens, herbal medicine, nature protection and environmental protection, as well as teachers and students in colleges and universities.