A FIELD GUIDE

Plants in Movies

Which US state's flora best matches each movie world?

Flora match by world

Raw Fair share

Read me: raw counts favor big, species-rich states and large plant families, for example Asteraceae (the daisy family, the largest on Earth) alone is ~65% of Arizona's “Middle-earth” score. Switch to Fair share to measure each state against the same national species pool per world, and tap any bar to see which families are doing the work. These biome groupings are a playful curation, not a phylogenetic claim.

Shared-species map PNG

Cord width is the number of species shared. Following a cord from a movie world to a state shows how many species they share; cords between two states show species that occur in both. The fattest cords are drawn on top.

Select specimens

How the score works

For each state we count the unique plant species whose family belongs to a movie world's curated family list. Raw species counts show those totals; Fair share divides by the number of such species nationwide, so small and large states can be compared fairly, and it removes the advantage big, species-rich states and giant plant families would otherwise have.

Arrakis · Dune

Agavaceae Aizoaceae Amaranthaceae Anacardiaceae Asparagaceae Brassicaceae Burseraceae Cactaceae Fouquieriaceae Frankeniaceae Poaceae Polygonaceae Tamaricaceae Zygophyllaceae

Middle-earth · LOTR

Apiaceae Araliaceae Asteraceae Betulaceae Cornaceae Ericaceae Fagaceae Gentianaceae Hydrangeaceae Juglandaceae Primulaceae Ranunculaceae Rosaceae Salicaceae Saxifragaceae

Isla Nublar · Jurassic Park

Araucariaceae Aspleniaceae Blechnaceae Cupressaceae Cyatheaceae Cycadaceae Dennstaedtiaceae Dryopteridaceae Equisetaceae Ginkgoaceae Isoetaceae Marattiaceae Ophioglossaceae Osmundaceae Pinaceae Podocarpaceae Polypodiaceae Psilotaceae Pteridaceae Selaginellaceae Thelypteridaceae Zamiaceae

Data: USDA PLANTS database