A full survey of herbarium material originating from Burundi will lead to the publication of an Annotated Checklist of Burundi Vascular Plants. All data from the ca. 37,000 herbarium collections available from that country are compiled in a dataset and georeferenced. This dataset was used to determine the current degree of botanical exploration and the inventory of all native and naturalized vascular plant species as well as to depict their distribution. Up to now, 4,200 species were inventoried, while the country holds an estimated 5,200 species. Several regions are botanically well-explored while for others our knowledge is very scanty. Systematic collecting efforts and the monitoring of the botanical diversity are sadly declining, despite the fact that intensive field work is necessary in less well-known areas but also in well-known areas to track diversity changes and issues such as invasive alien weeds expansion. Data on invasives in the country are still very incomplete, while there has been no verification of the increase or decline of the acutely threatened species published in the 2018 Red List. As the country is heavily populated and shows high population growth, the creation of new protected areas is due to conflicting interests. The only possibility might be ex-situ conservation (e.g. gene banks) of range-restricted and rare species known from degraded habitats which are close to extinction due to the current high rate of habitat destruction resulting from human activities.