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Rediscovered / Recovered Plant Species (MIA Or Believed Extinct)

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Experts rediscover plant presumed extinct for 60 years

Page last updated at 23:37 GMT, Thursday, 24 June 2010 00:37 UK

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By Victoria Gill
Science reporter, BBC News Anagramma fern The tiny fern was clinging to a precarious existence on a mountain ridge

In a small, noisy laboratory, tucked away in London's Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, a tiny plant is growing.

It looks just like a very small parsley bush, but it is actually a very special little plant indeed.

Clean air has to be constantly circulated in the lab to protect it from any bacteria.

This precious specimen is the Anogramma ascensionis fern, commonly known as the parsley fern. Since the 1950s, botanists believed it to be extinct.

It is native to Ascension - an island in the South Atlantic, which is one of Britain's overseas territories. And a small project supported by Kew's overseas territories programme has rediscovered and rescued it - a timely success story, as this year has been dubbed International Year of Biodiversity.
Continue reading the main story

Plants are such an important component of our lives... and extinction is forever

Colin Club Kew overseas territories programme leader

Kew botanist Phil Lamden and local conservation officer Stedson Stroud found the plucky little plant clinging to a precarious existence on a mountainside in the harsh volcanic landscape.

"We were down the back of Ascension's Green Mountain, which has very, very steep slopes. You have to be really careful because if you slip you're a goner," Mr Stroud recalled.

"And we came across this beautiful little fern and immediately knew it was the lost Anogramma that had been extinct for the last 60 years."

Ascension is covered by bleak, forbidding lava flows, and only 10 plant species are known to be truly "endemic" - found nowhere else in the world.
Stedson Stroud and Matti Niisato on Ascension Island's Green Mountain Stedson Stroud (left) scrambled down the mountain to tend the plants

According to Kew scientists, goats that were released on to Ascension by Portuguese explorers in the 1500s, ate their way voraciously through the island's greenery for 350 years before any of the flora was even described to science.

The introduction of more invasive herbivores - rabbits, sheep, rats and donkeys, together with over 200 species of invasive plants, further squeezed out the island's original plant inhabitants. The rediscovery of Anogramma boosts to seven the number of surviving endemic plant species on the island.

Mr Stroud said that, in the excitement, both of the researchers "forgot where they were".

"We were scrambling around, looking to see if there were more, and then we realised, we should really have safety ropes and stuff around us," he said.
24-hour rescue

There were more plants - four in total. But as far as the researchers knew, these were all that remained of Anogramma. So with the help of his colleague, Olivia Renshaw, Mr Stroud mounted a rather perilous effort to protect them.
Olivia Renshaw tending the Anagramme ferns The tiny fern plants had to be drip-fed

"We had to keep the plants alive - they were on a bare rock face and it was a really dry period, so Olivia and I went down twice a week carrying water and we set up a drip feed," said Stedson.

After a few weeks of tending the plants, the next part of their plan was even more risky. They had to get pieces of the ferns back to Kew so that more plants could be grown in the safety and sterility of the lab.

Stedson climbed down the ridge one again - this time to collect a few small cuttings of the spore-forming or reproductive parts of the plants.

Once harvested, the spores were vulnerable to drying and contamination, and the team had just 24 hours to transfer the precious cargo to the laboratory in Kew's Conservation Biotechnology Unit (CBU).
Satellite image of Ascension Island Ascension island is a forbidding, volcanic landscape

The samples were placed in a sterile container and rushed to the nearby airfield. From there, they were flown to a military airport in the UK, where a car was waiting to race them to Kew. Fortunately, the dust-like fern spores survived the journey intact.

Dr Viswambharan Sarasan is head of the CBU. He explained that their arrival was not the end of the challenge.

The spores had to be bleached to eliminate any bacteria, before the plants could be grown in culture.

"That is the really risky part," he said. "If you bleach them for too long, you could kill the spores, but if you don't treat them for long enough, there could be remaining bacteria that will grow in culture and kill them."
Continue reading the main story

It's so satisfying, bringing a plant back from the brink of extinction

Stedson Stroud Conservation officer, Ascension Island

And Dr Sarasan had only a one-pence-piece-sized clipping of fern to work with - the smallest sample he had ever cultured from.

After another nervous period of waiting, he was relieved to discover that the process had left the spores intact and viable.

He and his colleague Katie Baker, a botany undergraduate student working at Kew, have now succeeded in growing 60 new Anogramma plants in culture - all from four tiny plants on a cliff face in Ascension.

The team hope eventually to restore Anogramma to its former wild habitats on Ascension's Green Mountain.

And Mr Stroud has even managed to grow some of the plants in a shade house on the island itself.

"Each and every day, you're there, tending and looking, and hoping that something will happen," he said.

"Then one day you see something and - watching the plants grow - you can't ask for anything more."
Anagramma fern growing in culture Kew scientists have successfully grown more than 60 Anogramma plants

Colin Clubbe, who leads the UK overseas territories programme at Kew, says that this rescue effort was a small but vital part of a much wider goal to protect native plants in Britain's overseas territories before they are lost forever.

Plants are such an important component of our lives," he said. "And if we lose them, we lose them - extinction is forever.

He says that "holding on to our natural environment" could help us protect many of the plants we depend on.

"We do exploit species - we're reliant on plant products. We use them as a source of genes and, in these extremely dry habitats, like Ascension, plants that are naturally adapted may hold some answers to things like plants' responses to climate change."

This is actually the third extinct plant that Mr Stroud has rediscovered and, for him, it is an ongoing and very personal mission.

"There's never a time that I'm not actually looking fort these species because, we say they're extinct, but I believe they are there," he said.

"It's so satisfying, bringing a plant back from the brink of extinction."

Hear more from the researchers on Science in Action on the BBC World Service on Friday 25 June.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_ ... 402534.stm
 
Europe's rarest orchid rediscovered in the Azores
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/25259754
By Jeremy Coles
Reporter, BBC Nature

Flowers of Hochstetter's Butterfly-orchid / R Bateman

Is this Europe's rarest orchid?

Europe's rarest species of orchid has been rediscovered on a single volcanic ridge in the Azores, claim scientists.

The new species, known as Hochstetter's butterfly-orchid, was first found in 1838 but had escaped official recognition for almost two centuries.

Researchers analysed the islands' orchid populations and found the archipelago had three species of butterfly-orchid.

The findings are published in the open-access journal PeerJ.

Orchids are one of the most diverse and widespread families of flowering plants, with Europe home to more than 300 species.

And according to the research team, the Azores are an ideal place to study the evolution of orchid species as the archipelago is located 1600km (990 miles) from the nearest landmass of Portugal.

"Like many evolutionary biologists before me, I decided that an island system would be much simpler and would therefore yield less ambiguous results," explained lead researcher Professor Richard Bateman from the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew.

The team took samples for microscopy and DNA analysis and made detailed floral measurements of hundreds of plants from populations of butterfly-orchids spread across nine islands.

Prof Bateman predicted they would find two readily distinguishable species.

They found two species: the widespread short-spurred butterfly-orchid was present on all the islands and the rarer narrow-lipped on eight of the islands.

Continue reading the main story
Orchid oasis

Orchids
Meet the most cosmopolitan of flowering plant families

Watch flowers exploit the natural instincts of bees

See how orchids cannot germinate without the help of fungi

However the team made a surprising discovery when they surveyed a population on the top of a volcanic ridge on the central island of Sao Jorge.

" was astonished when our field expeditions revealed the existence of a third - and exceptionally rare - species, growing in such a dramatic, primeval landscape.

"I was even more astonished when my subsequent studies in herbaria and libraries showed that this exceptionally rare orchid, found only on one mountain-top on a single Azorean island, had in fact been found by the very first serious botanist to visit the Azores, in 1838," Prof Bateman told BBC Nature.

According to the team, it proved easier than expected to identify that the origin of the Azorean orchids was Europe rather than North America but surprisingly difficult to identify which part of Europe they came from, or how recently the westward journey took place.

Prof Bateman explained that because European orchids are so charismatic and biologically interesting, they have been the subjects of a great deal of scientific research by both professional and amateur researchers.

The Azorean island of Sao Jorge / R Poot
The Azorean island of Sao Jorge showing the area where the new orchid has been discovered
"The Azores make a refreshing change in that too few orchid species have been recognised on the islands," he said.

"It is a welcome bonus that the overlooked species has proven to be so informative about how evolution takes place... offering a suitable focal point for advocating conservation.

"[It is also] becoming my preferred contender for the title of Europe's rarest orchid species," Prof Bateman told BBC Nature.
 
Botanical experts have identified several trees at the Queen’s Scottish residence which were believed to have gone extinct during the 20th century.

Two Wentworth elms, a species thought to have been wiped out during the Dutch elm disease epidemic of the 1970s, were found in the garden at the Palace of Holyroodhouse near Edinburgh during a tree survey of the area.

Scientists are now working to identify where the elms came from, although it is believed they may have been introduced from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) in the late 19th century.

The elms are known to grow to up to 40 metres in height at full maturity, and have a domed appearance with long “curtains” of leaves draped over their branches.

RBGE researcher Max Coleman said it was “rather odd” the trees had not been identified previously during a survey of the Holyroodhouse grounds ...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/s...ueens-garden-scotland-edinburgh-a7343806.html
 
....said it was “rather odd” the trees had not been identified previously during a survey of the Holyroodhouse grounds ...
This, of course, implies other unfound fantastical possibilities, hidden deep within these (relatively) tiny Royal treasure chests.

If something alive as big as 40m in height can go unidentified (or misidentified) for 100 years, them unique flora or fauna that is 40cm (or 40mm....you get the idea) may have been hiding there totally-undiscovered for millennia....
 
Return of the lesser water plantain.

A nationally rare plant not recorded in Somerset since 1914 has been spotted on the Somerset Levels by botanists.

The lesser water plantain was found near the ancient man-made Sweet Track by the Somerset Rare Plants Group.

Chairman Stephen Parker said: "It's a sign that the work Natural England are doing on this one particular ditch, which we call the best ditch in Somerset, is working pretty well."

The ditch is also home to six other rare plants due to its water quality.

"The seed's probably always been there, but now because of recent clearance work, it's come back up again and flowered. Poor water quality can be a major issue for the plant," added Mr Parker.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-somerset-53719730
 
A Colorado has spent years attempting to locate a specimen of the Colorado Orange apple - long considered extinct. After investigating many different sorts of evidence - including an antique collection of wax fruit specimens - they've succeeded. This article provides the story of their quest.
Colorado couple's 20-year search for extinct fruit finally pays off

"When many people were coming in to go after gold in the Pike's Peak gold rush in the late 1800s, other people realized those miners and those folks would need to be fed," explains Jude, Addie's husband and her Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project co-director. "People thought they were insane and laughed at them for thinking that you could even grow fruit here."

The couple created MORP after they purchased a nursery in 2001. Their mission: to create and preserve a genetic bank of Colorado heritage apples and reintroduce those varieties into current orchards.

"Preserving genetic diversity of the apple is historically important and provides a valuable resource to today's farmers and consumers," says Addie.

"These varieties represent a real economic opportunity for growers in rural Colorado to put orchards back in these historical areas and give them a chance to make a living on the legendary quality fruit that was once a hallmark for our state," adds Jude.

One of those fruits the Schuenemeyers hoped to preserve: the Colorado Orange apple. ...

"We've documented over 400 varieties of apples historically grown in Colorado, 50% are now considered lost," says Addie. "The Colorado Orange was one of these."

It's been long-believed the Colorado Orange apple was extinct. ...

FULL STORY: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/colorado-orange-apple-trnd-scn/index.html
 
Well, they have done a lot of good with just a few small changes, havent they?
 
Surprise discovery of rare plant at Norfolk 'ghost pond'

A rare plant has reappeared after more than a century in hiding.
The pinkish-flowered plant, known as grass-poly, was found growing on the banks of an old farmland pond in Norfolk.
The mystery species "came back from the dead" after seeds submerged in the mud were disturbed during work to restore the pond.
And scientists say conservation efforts could lead to the return of other long-forgotten botanical gems.
Carl Sayer, a professor at University College London (UCL), stumbled on the plant when he went to survey the pond at Heydon shortly after the first national lockdown ended.
(c) BBC. '20.
 
New variety of apple discovered by Wiltshire runner

Archie Thomas stumbled across solitary windfall fruit that could be cross between cultivated apple and European crab apple.


A chance find of an apple on a woodland run has led one nature lover to discover a new variety that he hopes to propagate and name.

Archie Thomas, who lives in the Nadder valley in Wiltshire, stumbled across a solitary windfall apple on a wooded trackway alongside a large area of ancient woodland near his home this month.

The apple, which Thomas said was “unlike any I’d seen before”, had come from a lone old apple tree in the hedgerow with a large number of fruit on it.
(c) The Guardian BBC.'20

Name the apple "Go"
 
They send out full professors to survey “old farmland ponds” in Norfolk?

@Swifty could have done that, and probably much cheaper.

maximus otter

They tend to enter Norfolk in armoured columns, even so they still lose the odd post-doc to cannibalistic locals.
 
I'm trying to find different links to back this report up but I haven't yet ..

"Scientists have revived a plant from the Pleistocene epoch. This plant is 32,000 years old.

The oldest plants ever to be regenerated has been grown from 32,000-year-old seeds—beating the previous record holder by some 30,000 years. A Russian team discovered a seed cache of Silene stenophylla, a flowering plant native to Siberia, that had been buried by an Ice Age squirrel near the banks of the Kolyma River (map). Radiocarbon dating confirmed that the seeds were 32,000 years old" ..

aoldplant.jpg


https://mymodernmet.com/scientists-...z5-XmU4WATaXac3sXiAPGI83VVk2b_lysTTgqtlcJoU7o

A talk backer has stated this report dates back to 2012 but I haven't been able to find any evidence for that either yet other than in the above link.
 
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I'm trying to find different links to back this report up but I haven't yet ..

"Scientists have revived a plant from the Pleistocene epoch. This plant is 32,000 years old.

The oldest plants ever to be regenerated has been grown from 32,000-year-old seeds—beating the previous record holder by some 30,000 years. A Russian team discovered a seed cache of Silene stenophylla, a flowering plant native to Siberia, that had been buried by an Ice Age squirrel near the banks of the Kolyma River (map). Radiocarbon dating confirmed that the seeds were 32,000 years old" ..

View attachment 53661

https://mymodernmet.com/scientists-...z5-XmU4WATaXac3sXiAPGI83VVk2b_lysTTgqtlcJoU7o

A talk backer has stated this report dates back to 2012 but I haven't been able to find any evidence for that either yet other than in the above link.
It looks a bit 'carnation - ish'.
 
I'm trying to find different links to back this report up but I haven't yet ...
A talk backer has stated this report dates back to 2012 but I haven't been able to find any evidence for that either yet other than in the above link.

Yep - it was initially reported back in February 2012. Here are a NatGeo article and the published research report ...

32,000-Year-Old Plant Brought Back to Life—Oldest Yet
PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 23, 2012

The oldest plant ever to be regenerated has been grown from 32,000-year-old seeds—beating the previous recordholder by some 30,000 years. ...

A Russian team discovered a seed cache of Silene stenophylla, a flowering plant native to Siberia, that had been buried by an Ice Age squirrel near the banks of the Kolyma River (map). Radiocarbon dating confirmed that the seeds were 32,000 years old.

The mature and immature seeds, which had been entirely encased in ice, were unearthed from 124 feet (38 meters) below the permafrost ...

The mature seeds had been damaged—perhaps by the squirrel itself, to prevent them from germinating in the burrow. But some of the immature seeds retained viable plant material. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/120221-oldest-seeds-regenerated-plants-science



Regeneration of whole fertile plants from 30,000-y-old fruit tissue buried in Siberian permafrost
Svetlana Yashina, Stanislav Gubin, Stanislav Maksimovich, et al.
PNAS, February 21, 2012 | 109 (10) 4008-4013
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1118386109

SOURCE / FULL REPORT: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1118386109
 
Yep - it was initially reported back in February 2012. Here are a NatGeo article and the published research report ...


FULL STORY: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/120221-oldest-seeds-regenerated-plants-science



Regeneration of whole fertile plants from 30,000-y-old fruit tissue buried in Siberian permafrost
Svetlana Yashina, Stanislav Gubin, Stanislav Maksimovich, et al.
PNAS, February 21, 2012 | 109 (10) 4008-4013
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1118386109

SOURCE / FULL REPORT: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1118386109
I was thinking the flower looked like campion (silene latifolia to be really specific) or woodland phlox, before reading that it is silene. It is amazing that a plant can be grown from tissue this old.
 
Wildflower believed to be extinct for 40 years spotted in Ecuador.

Gasteranthus extinctus had been presumed extinct after extensive deforestation.

A South American wildflower long believed to be extinct has been rediscovered.

Gasteranthus extinctus was found by biologists in the foothills of the Andes mountains and in remnant patches of forest in the Centinela region of Ecuador, almost 40 years after its last sighting.


Extensive deforestation in western Ecuador during the late 20th century led to the presumed extinction of a number of plant species, including Gasteranthus extinctus – the reason scientists gave it that name.

Despite reports that more than 97% of forests in the western half of Ecuador have been destroyed or converted to farmland, including most of the Centinela Ridge, the researchers began searching last summer, starting by scouring satellite images to identify intact primary rainforest.

“Centinela is a mythical place for tropical botanists,” said Nigel CA Pitman, one of the researchers behind the discovery. “But because it was described by the top people in the field, no one really double checked the science. No one went back to confirm that the forest was gone and those things were extinct.
(C) The Guardian. '22

They're going have to change the name to Gasteranthus Foundus.
 
A late entry:-

Courteenhall: Elusive snowdrop variety is discovered after 50 years.

An elusive variety of snowdrop has been discovered thriving in a wild garden after a search of more than half a century.

The Courteenhall snowdrop was named after the 1,000-acre Northamptonshire estate that bears its name.
Head groundsman Darron Wilks said he found "a bunch of about 40" by chance, blooming in the estate's Laundry Cottage garden earlier this week.
"I peered over this overgrown box hedge - and there it was," he said.
Mr Wilks told BBC Radio Northampton the little plant was "taller than the average snowdrop, with quite a lot of green on the inside of the petals - it's absolutely stunning."
(C) BBC. '22
 
Well, it's not an animal but I hope this is a suitable posting (if not, then I'd be grateful if the mods can move it somewhere more appropiate)..

Wildflower believed to be extinct for 40 years spotted in Ecuador​

Gasteranthus extinctus had been presumed extinct after extensive deforestation
From The Guardian here.
 
An endangered orchid has been discovered in Vermont, where it's been presumed extinct for circa 120 years.
Vermont botanists find threatened orchid not seen in state since 1902

Botanists in Vermont have found a federally protected orchid believed to have gone extinct in the state in 1902, officials said.

The Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department announced in a statement Wednesday that its botanists have confirmed a population of small whorled pogonia, which is protected as threatened under the Federal Endangered Species Act and has not been seen in Vermont in 120 years. ...

The plant was discovered on conservation land within Chittenden County's Winooski Valley Park District ...

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the species is listed as threatened wherever it is found within the United States, and has a historical range that includes 20 eastern states and the District of Colombia.

However, the federal department states the plant is only known to occur or believed to occur in 17 of them, not including Vermont. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2022/06/09/Vermont-orchid-found/8441654764281/
 
A single living specimen of an oak species believed to have died out in 2011 has been discovered in Texas. It's in poor condition, so the immediate issue is trying to save it.
Clinging to Life: Scientists Rediscover Oak Tree Thought To Be Extinct

Botanical researchers have discovered an oak tree once thought to be extinct, and now in immediate need of conservation within Big Bend National Park in Texas. The discovery was made by scientists representing a coalition of more than 10 institutions.

Scientists headed by The Morton Arboretum and United States Botanic Garden (USBG) were ecstatic to discover a lone Quercus tardifolia (Q. tardifolia) tree standing about 30 feet (9 meters) tall, though it is in poor health. First described in the 1930s, the last known living specimen was believed to have perished in 2011. ...

Researchers hope that by determining why this tree is going extinct they may be able to protect other organisms from the same fate. Unfortunately, it is still unclear whether or not this specimen of Q. tardifolia can be saved. ...
FULL STORY: https://scitechdaily.com/clinging-to-life-scientists-rediscover-oak-tree-thought-to-be-extinct/
 
A single living specimen of an oak species believed to have died out in 2011 has been discovered in Texas. It's in poor condition, so the immediate issue is trying to save it.

FULL STORY: https://scitechdaily.com/clinging-to-life-scientists-rediscover-oak-tree-thought-to-be-extinct/
Many years ago, quite out-of-the-blue, I received six seeds from Wisely (RHS), they were sent to me as at the time I was having some successes with crossing Lilium's. The seeds were sent to me of an unknown miniature Pine tree found in an old quarry, from somewhere in N.E. Scotland where I was living at that time, (Labelled as: Pinus-Pinus).
After a longish wait, I got lucky, and had just one seed shoot, now that little seed has reached the grand height of two-feet tall, and is fifty years old!
I've just recently taken the first cutting from it, to ensure it can go on existing should anything happen to my original little tree.
(it hasn't (as yet) produced any little seed cones)
*The needle's are very soft to the touch.
Pinus - Pinus (2022_04_04 12_50_16 UTC).jpg
 
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Hats off to the skullcaps finder.

A wildflower has been rediscovered on the Isle of Man for the first time in more than 140 years.

The skullcaps were found on marshy grassland, known as a garee, on a dairy farm in the south of the island.

It is the first time a native example has been found on the island since 1880, the Manx Wildlife Trust said. The plant, which has the scientific name Scutellaria galericulata, has tube-like blue flowers of about 0.5 inches (1.5cm). A perennial member of the mint family, it was discovered by the trust's agri-environment officer David Bellamy while on a farm visit on 4 July.

Botanical records on the island show the wildflower has only been identified twice, once in 1832 and again in 1880, both in the Scarlett area in the south of the island.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-isle-of-man-62743731
 
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