Figure 3. The number of first-time collections of Amazonian tree species each year between 1707 and 2015.

The red line (loess regression) suggests 3 peaks in discovery. The decline after 1980 is partly the effect of decreasing efficiency in the rate of new species per number of collections (see Fig. 6) and partly the effect of the lag time between the collection of new species, the description of new species, and the appearance of new species in herbarium databases.