Thursday, December 24, 2009
The flower of 100-foot tall Talbotiella velutina tree, found in Cameroon (photo: Kew Gardens)
While much of this year brought grim news about economic retraction and job loss for most of the world, botanists enjoyed a banner year. The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in the United Kingdom proudly announced on Tuesday that nearly 300 new plant species were uncovered across the planet in 2009, surpassing the yearly average of 200.
The 292 discoveries—a third of which are in danger of extinction—included giant rainforest trees, rare orchids, palms, fungi, wild coffees and ancient aquatic plants. The locales of the plants ranged from Brazil to Cameroon to New Guinea. One was even found in the Royal Botanic Gardens, where a botanist happened to notice a flowery plant growing anonymously in an exhibit. Records indicate the plant (Isoglossa variegate) was donated back in the 1990s by Swedish researchers returning from a trip to Tanzania.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
'Bumper Year' for Botanical Finds (by Mark Kinver, BBC News)
Kew Discovers New Plant Species in One of Its Own Glasshouses (by Ian Sample, The Guardian)
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