No plant species meet the strict criteria for “Endemic Plants of Namibia.”
Understand that requiring strict country-only endemism produces no entries. Define endemic as a species native and found only within Namibia’s political borders and limited to currently accepted vascular-plant records. This very narrow scope excludes many plants whose ranges cross borders or whose status changes with new research.
Note that political borders cut across real ecosystems. Many plants tied to the Namib Desert, Succulent Karoo or Kaokoveld occur in Angola, South Africa or Botswana as well. Taxonomy and new field surveys also change range maps. For example, Welwitschia mirabilis is iconic to the Namib but also occurs in southern Angola. Several quiver trees and many Lithops species are mostly Namibian but extend into neighboring countries, so they are near-endemics rather than strict country endemics. Authoritative databases (SANBI, GBIF, IUCN) and herbarium records therefore list ecoregion or regional endemism more often than strict national endemism.
Explore close alternatives that do exist. Use lists of Namib Desert endemics, regional or ecoregional endemics, and “near-endemic” species that are mainly in Namibia. Consult SANBI and GBIF checklists, IUCN Red List entries for Namibia, and downloadable CSVs organized by biome, family, and conservation status. For a practical next step, compile a sortable list of Namibia’s regional endemics, near-endemics, and threatened species rather than insisting on strict country-only endemism.
