1914–2014: A revised worldwide catalogue of cushion plants 100 years after Hauri and Schröter

Cushion plants have long fascinated botanists for their ability to cope with extreme environments in most mountains and arctic regions of the world. One century ago, a first worldwide catalogue of species forming cushions was published by Hauri and Schroter (Bot Jahrb Syst Pflanzengesch Pflanzengeogr 50:618–656, 1914). Here, we defined a simplified typology of cushion plants and updated the worldwide catalogue of cushion species, along with information on their geographic distribution. This compilation was based on available information in floras and catalogues but also in efloras and virtual encyclopedias, which were screened using automated database queries. We established a list of 1,309 cushion-forming species distributed in 272 genera and 63 families of angiosperms. Compact cushions are represented by 678 species, among which 587 species exhibit a hemispherical shape, and 91 species exhibit a flat to mat shape. We found 398 species forming non-compact hemispherical cushions. The list of cushion species has significantly increased since Hauri and Shroter, due to the description of new species, updated regional inventories, and improved access to electronic databases. Uncertainties in the delineation of the cushion life form are discussed, notably for non-compact growth forms. A website has been launched to display the catalogue and enable a collaborative improvement of the database (http://www.cushionplants.eu/). The distribution of the species is presented on the basis of the world geographical scheme for recording plant distributions and global biodiversity information facility data. This catalogue will serve as a reference database for further analyses on the biogeography and evolutionary history of cushion plants and arctico-alpine biotas.