The Italian vascular flora is one of the richest in the European Union and the Italian peninsula is located at the centre of the Mediterranean Basin, one of the 25 world biodiversity hotspots with an exceptional loss of habitats and species (1). Preliminary to any conservation initiative concerning plant diversity, a prioritization of the most endangered species is needed. IUCN Red List protocol is widely recognized and used to evaluate the conservation status of a species, according to its estimated extinction risk (2). Assessing the conservation status of plants endemic to an entire nation is a key challenge, because of the huge amount of data, knowledge and information required. Such a result can be achieved only through the collaboration of many specialists and an adequate financial base. “The Red List of the Italian Flora” project, promoted by the Ministry for Environment and Protection of Land and Sea General, Directorate for Protection of Nature and Sea, in collaboration with the Italian Botanical Society, started in 2013 with the aim to update the conservation status of Italian plants. In 2016 the assessment of all the vascular plants strictly endemics to Italy was completed. Considering all the Italian endemics, with the exclusion of taxonomically critical genera (i.e. Alchemilla, Hieracium, Ophrys, Pilosella, Ranunculus, Rubus and Taraxacum), a total of 1088 taxa was assessed. Three taxa are considered extinct (EX), one extinct in the wild (EW) and six are possibly extinct (CR[PE]). Around 27% of the Italian endemics are included in one of the major threat categories (CR, EN and VU), while c. 20% may become threatened with extinction in the near future (NT). Around half of the Italian endemic taxa (506) are widespread and abundant taxa (LC). Finally, 80 species (7%) were categorized as Data Deficient since the available data did not allow a robust assessment, indicating that further taxonomic and field studies should be undertaken in the next future.
