In addition to the pioneering scientists of the 19th century, many more have since continued and expanded knowledge of Central Brazilian botany, with a number meriting particular mention.

One noteworthy researcher in particular was Carlos Toledo Rizzini, a botanist based at the Jardim Botânico do Rio de Janeiro. Rizzini was the first scientist to attempt to compile a complete woody species list of the cerrado, published in the proceedings of the First Symposium on the Cerrado in 1963. This included 537 species belonging to 242 genera. This list has since been greatly augmented, and a number of botanists have published more recent estimates of the diversity of the biome and its flora including Dias (1992), Mendonça et al. (1998, 2008), Castro et al. (1999) and Ratter et al. (2003). The current understanding is that the whole biome contains about 12,000 species of vascular plants, of which at least a third are thought to be endemic. This estimate considers the combined floras of all vegetation types within the biome, including cerrado sensu lato, mesophilous and gallery forests and swamp vegetation.

Throughout the 1960s a number of botanists collected prolifically across the biome including Gert Hatschbach (Curitiba), Ezechias Heringer (Brasília), Hermogenes de Freitas Leitão-Filho and his collaborators (University of Campinas, São Paulo), Balthasar Dubs (Zurich), Howard Irwin (New York), Anthony Anderson (New York), James Ratter (Edinburgh), and George Eiten (Brasília), with the last publishing a long, scholarly, in-depth review of cerrado vegetation in 1972 (Eiten, 1972). Other early influential works that helped attract international interest into the cerrado include those of Robert Goodland (1971) and James Ratter et al. (1973), while the Austrian husband and wife team, Gerhard and Ilse Gottsberger have spent their lives in cerrado studies in various institutes, culminating in their magnificent two volume work (Gottsberger and Gottsberger, 2006).

Today there are hundreds of collectors working in Central Brazil, the great majority of whom are appropriately Brazilian. For example, in Minas Gerais, the research group of Mitzi Brandão and associates have worked over a great area of southern and central Minas Gerais (see for instance, Brandão & Gavilanes, 1992), whilst Ary Oliveira-Filho from the Universities of Lavras and Belo Horizonte has worked on floristic and analytical studies throughout the cerrado region. In the south, Giselda Durigan has surveyed much of the cerrado remnants in São Paulo State (e.g. Durigan et al., 2003) whilst the UNICAMP school led by the late Hermogenes de Freitas Leitão Filho have also concentrated their studies on that region. The team led by the late Jeanine Felfili of the University of Brasília, Forest Department, have focused their studies on describing the floristics of the physiographic cerrado units of Central Brazil. In the far north, Miranda (1997) has surveyed the disjunct Amazonian savannas of Roraima. And now there are teams from a host of University campuses, e.g., the university of Uberlândia and the Nova Xavantina campus at the State University of Mato Grosso, carrying out excellent studies. In addition, numerous taxonomists have revised South American plant groups at the generic or family level (for Flora Neotropica, for example), with their treatments including cerrado species.

The most complete herbarium collections (within Brazil) for the cerrado are those curated by the Universities of Brasília, Campinas and São Paulo. In addition, the Rio Botanical Garden and the herbarium of the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE, based in Brasília) also have fine representations of the flora. Outside the country, concentrated collections can also be found in the herbaria of the Botanic Gardens of New York, Edinburgh and Kew. .

Further information on research attempting to clarify patterns of diversity within the cerrado biome can be viewed in the paper associated with this website. This includes discussion of the work of Felfili et al. of the University of Brasília, Durigan et al at São Paulo, and de Castro of the Federal University of Piauí. Click here to download and view this work.

Brandão, M. & Gavilanes, M.L. (1992). Espécies arbóreas padronizadoras do cerrado minero e sua distribuição no estado. Inf. Agropec. Belo Horizonte 16(173): 5-11.

Castro, A.A.J.F., Martins, F.R., Tamashiro, J.Y. & Shepherd, G.J. (1999). How rich is the flora of the Brazilian cerrados? Ann. Missouri Bot. Gard. 86: 192-224.

Dias, B. F. de Souza. (1992). Cerrados: Uma caracterizão. In: Dias B. F. de Souza (ed.). Alternativas de desinvolvimento dos cerrados: manejo e conservação dos recursos naturais renováveis. Brasília, DF, Brazil. FUNATURA.

Durigan, G., Ratter, J. A., Bridgewater, S., de Siqueira, M. F.& Corrêa Franco, G. A. (2003). Padrões fitogeográficos de cerrado paulista sob uma perspective regional. Hoehnea 30: 39-51.

Eiten, G. (1972). The cerrado vegetation of Brazil. The Botanical Review 38 (2): 201-341.

Goodland, R.J.A. (1970). Plants of the cerrado vegetation of Brazil. Phytologia 20: 57-77.

Mendonça, R.C. de et al. (1998). Flora vascular do cerrado, pp. 289-556 in Sano S.M. & Almeida, S.P. de, Eds, Cerrado: ambiente e flora, EMBRAPA, Planaltina, DF, Brazil.

Mendonça, R.C. de et al. (2008). Cerrado - Ecologia e Flora ed. 2 vol. 2. Ch. 15. Flora Vascular do Bioma Cerrado:checklist com 12,356 espécies. EMBRAPA CERRADOS, Brasília, DF, Brazil

Miranda, I.S. (1997). Flora, fisionomia e estrutura das savanas de Roraima, Brasil. INPA, Manaus, AM, Brazil.

Oliveira-Filho, A. T. & Ratter, J. A. (2002). Vegetation physiognomies and woody flora of the cerrado biome. In: Oliveira, P. S. & Marquis, R. J. (eds). The Cerrados of Brazil. Columbia University Press, New York, 398 pp.

Ratter, J.A. et al. (1973). Observations on the vegetation of north eastern Mato Grosso, I. The woody vegetation of the Xavantina-Cachimbo Expedition area. Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. B 226: 449-492.

Ratter, J.A. et al. (1973). Analysis of the floristic composition of the Brazilian cerrado vegetation III: comparison of the woody vegetation of 376 areas. Edinb. J. Bot. 60: 57-109.

Rizzini, C. T. (1963). A flora do cerrado. Análise florística dos savannas centrais. In: Ferri, M. G. Simpósio sobre o cerrado. São Paulo. Brazil. Editora Universidade de São Paulo: 107-153.