• Taxonomic checklists used to verify published plant names and identify synonyms are a cornerstone of biological research. Four global authoritative taxonomic checklists for vascular plants exist: Leipzig Catalogue of Vascular Plants, World Checklist of Vascular Plants, World Flora Online (successor of The Plant List, TPL), and WorldPlants. We compare these four checklists in terms of size and differences across taxa.
• We matched taxon names of these checklists and TPL against each other, identified differences across checklists, and evaluated the consistency of accepted names linked to individual taxon names. We assessed geographic and phylogenetic patterns of variance.
• All checklists differed strongly compared to TPL and provided identical information on about 60% of plant names. Geographically, differences in checklists increased from low to high latitudes. Phylogenetically, we detected strong variability across families. Two use cases, a comparison of name-matching performance on taxon names submitted to the functional trait database TRY, and a check of completeness of accepted names evaluated against an independent, expert-curated checklist of the family Meliaceae, showed a relatively similar performance across checklists.
• This study raises awareness on the differences in data and approach across these checklists potentially impacting analyses. We propose ideas on the way forward exploring synergies and harmonizing the four global checklists.