Regional (and national) floristic novelties from Liguria (NW Italy): the importance of the Wikiplantbase project also for "well-known" areas

The citizen science projects are increasingly important for the data collection of species belonging to different taxonomic groups. In Italy, one of the most important examples for plants is the Wikiplantbase project. Often, such projects are used to fill gaps of knowledge in poorly explored areas. Conversely, we selected seven localities in Liguria (NW Italy) belonging to well-explored areas in the past from a floristic point of view. For each locality, we performed in 2020 a group-survey with a well-established modality within the Wikiplantbase project. Overall, we collected more than 3200 data of occurrence for 887 taxa belonging to 108 families. Among these taxa, we found a new species for Italy and 15 new or confirmed taxa for Liguria. Moreover, we collected data about two poorly known natural hybrids and proposed a change of status for three alien taxa. Eventually, we collected hundreds of data about several heritage taxa, whose available data until now were often old-dated or scarcely accurate. Our data suggest that citizen science projects can provide concrete improvements in the knowledge of taxa distribution also in well-explored areas.