SummaryPRECIS (Pretoria National Herbarium Computerized Information System) is designed to provide information about plants in southern Africa, a region that lacks a completed modern flora. The system now consists of four separate but linked components: Specimen, Taxon, Nomenclatural and Curatorial. The “PRECIS experiment” covers an estimated nine per cent of the world's plant species. It provides a broad and continuously up‐to‐date overview of the southern African flora as well as detailed information about particular species, specimens and localities. PRECIS results have wide applicability in taxonomic and vegetation studies, and could not have been obtained without computerization.