New Ornamental Plants for Horticulture - Horticulture: Plants for People and Places - page 427

Fig. 12.1 Value of
production of flowers and pot
plants in selected countries
using an exchange rate of
US$ 1.357 to EUR (Source:
Adapted from Association
Internationale des
Producteurs l'Horticulture
AIPH/Union Fleurs 2011 )

6000

5000

4000

3000

2009
2010

2000

1000

0

plants that command attention in the garden such as oaks ( Quercus spp), various
eucalyptus trees ( Eucalyptus spp.) and the red flowering gum ( Corymbia ficifolia ),
cone-shaped conifers and pines and the large flowered Magnolia grandifolia . There
are also plants that provide a changing vista such as the Japanese maples ( Acer spp.)
with leaves that turn lime green, yellow to golden colours in the fall. Still other
plants provide sharp distinct foliage such as the dragon plant ( Dracaena draco )) or
the variegated the canna ( Canna x generalis hybrids) with large coloured flowers
(Burke 2002 ).
One area that needs to be continually well managed to ensure that there is
continuous funding for investment in breeding and developing new plant mate-
rial is the protection of intellectual property rights (Dixon and Ogier 2007 ). This
is a means of ensuring the science and effort by the breeder is rewarded although
this can be difficult because intellectual property can easily be eroded. The es-
tablishment of international agreements, such as The International Union for the
Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) and the development of intellectual
property rights such as Plant Breeding Rights and Patents, are ways of ensuring
this protection.

Plant Diversity

To fulfil the market need there has been increasing effort to secure new types and
cultivars of plants. This has involved selecting new species from wild populations
as well as breeding programs to improve existing cultivars and develop new ones.
The world flora numbers some 282,000 species (Chapman 2009 ), and can be divid-
ed into a number of floral taxa or geographical areas each with a number of biomes
or dominant forms of vegetation (biographical regions depending on climatic fac-
tors) that include tropical rain forest, sub-tropical forest, warm and cool temperate
forest, desert, and tundra (Reich et al. 1997 ) (Fig. 12.2 ).
These can be broadly grouped into six biomes based on Fig. 12.2 .