The history of floristic diversity and its relationship with climate change and human activities can serve as important analogues for the contemporary plant diversity,and offer historical references for the recovery of floristic diversity. So far, many paleoecologists have studied the modern process of pollen diversity and reconstructed the long-term variations in floristic diversity based on fossil pollen data. However, these studies are challenged by many biases such as the inadequate accuracy in pollen identification, and the influences from different mechanisms of pollen dispersal, pollen source areas, vegetation representation, and various sedimentation processes. This paper briefly reviews some quantitative indices and methods in pollen diversity analysis, including pollen taxon number, palynological richness, evenness, Simpson index and Shannon-Wiener index. These biases in the analysis of pollen diversity and the reconstruction of paleo-floristic diversity are also discussed here, as well as some possible solutions and calibration methods. We highlighted a need for the promotion of taxonomic accuracy and consistency in pollen counting for the regional correlation of pollen diversity and paleo-floristic diversity. Besides, efforts for the building of beta diversity and functional diversity for pollen diversity indices are also encouraged in order to integrate the pollen-based floristic diversity into the category of modern macroecology study. Furthermore, investigations on modern pollen diversity are emphasized for the calibration between pollen diversity and floristic diversity,which can offer us quantitative information to estimate and eliminate the influences from differences in pollen dispersal and sedimentation process, and to promote the reliability of reconstructed paleo-floristic diversity.