Earth may have 9,200 more tree species than previously thought

Trillions of trees are growing on Earth, though how many kinds there are has been underestimated, a new study finds.

Earth hosts roughly 64,100 known tree species. But there could be at least 73,300 — about 14 percent more than previously thought — a global collaboration of researchers reports in the Feb. 8 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

More than a third of the 9,200 undiscovered species are probably rare and hiding out in South America’s biodiversity hot spots, such as the Amazon and tropical Andes, biologist Roberto Cazzolla Gatti of the University of Bologna in Italy and colleagues say.

To estimate the number of Earth’s existing tree species,

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