A global regionalisation based on the present-day distribution of broad plant lineages

Although world's zoogeographical regions have been repeatedly confirmed using various clustering techniques, this has not yet been done in the case of world's floral kingdoms, due to the absence of complete and accurate distributional data sets. Here we use the distribution of 65 broad seed plant lineages across 37 regions to test for global relationships. We find support for the existence of distinct Austral, Holotropical, and Holarctic clusters. The existence of an Austral kingdom has long been considered to be one of the major differences between plant and animal regionalisation patterns. However, the homogeneity of the Holotropical cluster can be viewed as a relatively novel result.