**2. Aims**

may be more noticeable if the political authorities, private stakeholders, and the researchers work together to organize the sector. It could thus participate effectively in the formal

**Keywords:** biodiversity, ornamental horticulture flora, socio-economics, profitability,

Urban growth is a fundamental ingredient for global population advancement in the time

Urban growth is a fundamental ingredient in the evolution of the world's population, insofar as cities have an increasing share of this population. Urbanization represents a culmination of the economic processes in progress, both those that are part of a developmental logic and those that are the result of a breakdown of rural societies. Moreover, urbanization often causes a conflict exacerbation between the population and its environment. Urban forests bring many benefits in terms of sustainability. They help to regulate the urban climate and are a benefit source of biodiversity, but they also constitute spaces for social practices and

Created in the early 19th century [1], the word horticulture means, according to the French language dictionary (2008), the cultivation of ornamental plants, vegetables, and fruits. It is synonymous with gardening. In the Larousse dictionary (2008), horticulture is an art of cultivating gardens. It is a branch of agriculture including the cultivation of vegetables, flowers,

• food or edible horticulture that includes vegetable crops in the open field, vegetable or

• ornamental or inedible horticulture that includes potted plant production, bedding plants and cut flowers, ornamental arboriculture, and nurseries and bulbous plant production.

Acclimatization of plants is becoming more and more a commercial business and the collecting botanists sent on mission by large horticultural firms compete with the traveling botanists of scientific institutions. These explorations are current today and the transport of plants is not without dangers: phytosanitary problems, invasive plants and more recently the question

In Togo, the colonial period (1884–1960) was active in the knowledge of Togo's flora and vegetation, thanks to civilian administrators, ethnologists, foresters, agronomists, doctors, etc. [3]. However, botanical prospections really started only with the creation of the first university (University of Lomé) in 1970. Since then, several authors, including Aké Assi [4], Ern [5, 6], Brunel [7], Brunel et al. [3], Brunel [8], and Scholz and Scholz [9] have contributed to improve this knowledge. The synthesis of all these works resulted in the publication of the Flora of

economy and the emergence of true development plans at the municipal level.

Togo, medicinal plants, parts used

where towns aggregate an increasing part of this population.

trees, fruit, and ornamental shrubs. It is divided into two branches:

**1. Introduction**

206 Selected Studies in Biodiversity

economic resources.

vegetable crops, and fruit trees;

of the ownership of the genetic resource [2].

The usefulness of this chapter is to constitute a part of the best knowledge of Togo's flora in particularly its horticultural flora made up to more than 90% of exotic plants, while the native local flora remains poorly known. It is also an interpellation of the botanist community from local universities and research institutions in botany and ethnobotany, to deepen the knowledge of the local flora, especially its valorization in many branches like the horticultural sector which is gaining considerable momentum in the country, by proposing a greater diversity of local ornamental plants.
