To increase loading speed and address bandwidth concerns due to our ever increasing readership, we needed to remove most of our Asian Arts & Culture and Philippine Environment images. (These images can now be found on a separate website at www.phil-can.com .  However, we maintain that the biodiversity of the Philippines is truly impressive in global terms. This is certainly true of overall diversity, but especially so as regards endemism. In absolute numbers, its endemic species in groups like plants, mammals, birds, reptiles, butterflies are comparable to and often exceed the much larger mega-diversity countries. The Philippines harbors about 8,000+ species of flowering plants distributed in about 1,600 genera and 191 families. There are more than 6,490 species of non-flowering plants (i.e. algae, fungi, mosses, ferns, etc.) and combined with vascular plants the total number of plants is about 14,490+species! Of this number, between 30% to 40% are said to be endemic to the country and nowhere else found. LET US LOVE AND PROTECT OUR ENVIRONMENT for our children's sake, if not our own.