A project spanning 39 years and 255 authors has found that 22% of species in the Iberian peninsula do not grow anywhere else in the world.

'Narcissus cyclamineus', a species that was believed to be extinct, has been located in Portugal and northwestern Spain.

‘Narcissus cyclamineus’, a species that was believed to be extinct, has been located in Portugal and northwestern Spain.

A plant of the grass family native to the Americas that was introduced in parts of Spain, Muhlenbergia schreberi, is the very last entry in a vast botanical inventory that was 39 years in the making and required the efforts of two generations of experts.

The description of this particular species was the final touch on the comprehensive catalog’s 25th volume, which went to print this past summer. The project, known as Proyecto Flora ibérica, has been hailed by specialists as the greatest milestone in the classification of the region’s biodiversity since the days of the illustrious 19th-century botanist Heinrich Moritz Willkomm, who led plant-collecting expeditions in Spain and Portugal.