The study of the Brazilian Flora, recognized as the richest in the world (Forzza et al. 2012), has a long history. During the XVIII and XIX centuries, European naturalists, visiting or residing in Brazil, and also a few Brazilian botanists, collected plant specimens and sent them to herbaria in Europe. The main objective during that period was to study the plants and their potential uses. Many of these collections provided the basis for the description of species or genera new to science (and so became nomenclatural types), or formed part of the large set of samples that were used to describe over 22 thousand species of the Flora brasiliensis (Martius, Eichler & Urban 1840 –1906). The Brazilian Government established the REFLORA/CNPq Programme in 2010 with the objective to rescue and make available images and information concerning Brazilian plants deposited chiefly in overseas herbaria through an on-line facility, the Herbário Virtual Reflora. From 2014 onwards, SiBBr (Sistema de Informação sobre a Biodiversidade Brasileira) and IFN (National Forest Inventory), joined efforts to this initiative, which made possible the increase of collections published by the project.

The Herbário Virtual Reflora system was developed in a partnership between the JBRJ (Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden) and COPPE (Alberto Luiz Coimbra Post-Graduation and Engeneering Research Institute – UFRJ). The system structure is hosted by the JBRJ, which is responsible for receiving, storing, and publishing the images. Just like the Herbário Virtual Reflora, the Flora system, which was launched in 2008 and has gone through different stages (i.e.: Lista de Espécies da Flora do Brasil, Flora do Brasil 2020, and Flora e Funga do Brasil), is part of the Reflora Program. In this context, Flora e Funga do Brasil works as a validator for the names assigned to the images of the Herbário Virtual Reflora, which is also updated and enriched by taxonomists working in a network in an online system. The Reflora Programme was extremely important for Brazil to successfully meet the Goals established by the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation, within the scope of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CDB), for 2010 and 2020. The challenges for knowing and studying biodiversity do not cease and the Reflora systems intend to continue playing the role of making extensive and unrestricted availability of accurate data on plants, algae and fungi in Brazil.