Hispaniola island consists of two independent countries, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The island has an area of 77,914 Km²; 650 Km in length from East to West (from Cabo Engaño in Dominican Republic to Irois in Haiti), and 265 Km in width from North to South (from Cabo Isabela to Cabo Beata in Dominican Republic). Hispaniola possesses the highest altitude in the Caribbean with the Duarte peak at an altitude of 3,087 m. The annual average temperature,  at sea level is 25 °C. The hottest month is August and the coolest January. It is common in winter to register temperatures under 0 °C in the mountains. At approximately 1,200 m above sea level, you can find sub-tropical environments allowing the breeding of cool weather crops such as potato, strawberry and garlic. 

    Hispaniola, in conjunction with other islands of the Greater Antilles, forms one of the principal plant diversity centers in the world. Preliminary estimates suggest that the island possesses around 5,600 vascular plant species. Of these 5,600 plant species, around 1,800 are endemic to the island, that is, they do not grow outside the island (Liogier, 2000). The rate of endemism is estimated to be as high as 36% of the flora, which is the second highest percentage of the West Indies after Cuba. Some of the endemic species have a general distribution on the island and others are found in specific environment of a reduced distribution. Some are useful, others are poisonous and harmful, and others do not have any specific uses.  The island possesses more than 35 endemic genera but no endemic families. The species density (number of species divided by the considered area), of this island (0.064) is higher than Cuba (0.052), Madagascar (0.010), Ceilan (0.045), and Australia (0.0015) (Liogier, 2000). 

    There is not a straightforward answer to the question as to where the flora of Hispaniola comes from. However there are partial answers and hypotheses. There are still numerous inexplicable events and many to discover (Liogier, 2000).

    This website has been designed to look at the endemic flora of Hispaniola. You will be able to access information on the habitat of the species, distribution, uses as well as chemical compounds of interest in the case of the well studied species and genera.

Links of interest:

Learn more about the Caribbean, and the Dominican Republic, its provinces and history.

NYBG Neotropical Flora

MOBOT search

GRIN

IPNI

KEGG PATHWAY Database

Tair metabolic pathway

Dr. Duke's
Phytochemical and Ethnobotanical Database

  Ontology database