Rare Plants
Rare Plants
Rare plants are species that occur in unusually small populations, occupy restricted geographic ranges, depend on specialized habitats, or have become uncommon because of environmental change and human activity. Rarity does not automatically mean that a species is endangered, but small populations and narrow distributions can make plants particularly vulnerable to habitat destruction, climate change, invasive species, disease, development, collection, and natural disasters.
Research on rare plants spans ecology, genetics, taxonomy, conservation biology, restoration, and land management. Scientists use field surveys, herbarium collections, population monitoring, genetic studies, ecological modeling, botanical gardens, seed banks, and reintroduction programs to understand why plants are rare and determine how threatened populations can be protected.
Understanding Plant Rarity and Extinction Risk
Plant rarity takes many forms. Some species have always been naturally uncommon because they evolved in specialized environments such as cliffs, islands, wetlands, alpine habitats, deserts, limestone formations, serpentine soils, or geographically isolated ecosystems. Other plants were once widespread but became rare after their habitats were fragmented or transformed.
Range-restricted and endemic plants can be especially vulnerable because much or all of their global population may occur within a very small area. A mine, road, fire, drought, invasive species, disease outbreak, or other disturbance affecting that location can therefore threaten an entire species.
Extinction-risk assessments combine information about geographic range, population size, population trends, habitat condition, known threats, and biological characteristics. Accurate taxonomy is also essential. Conservation cannot be effectively planned until researchers determine what species exist, where they occur, and whether apparently separate populations belong to the same evolutionary lineage.
Global assessments demonstrate the scale of the problem. Research on flowering plants has identified thousands of evolutionarily distinctive and globally endangered species. Losing these plants can eliminate not only individual species but unique branches of evolutionary history.
Threats to Rare Plants
Habitat destruction and fragmentation are among the most important threats to rare plants. Agriculture, mining, urbanization, roads, energy development, recreation, grazing, logging, and other land uses can eliminate habitat or divide populations into increasingly isolated fragments.
Climate change adds another layer of risk. Plants confined to islands, mountains, deserts, wetlands, or other narrowly defined environments may have few places to migrate as temperature and precipitation patterns change. Drought, altered fire regimes, storms, changing flowering seasons, and shifting ecological relationships can further destabilize small populations.
Invasive plants, animals, fungi, and other organisms can transform rare-plant habitats. Introduced competitors may displace native vegetation, while invasive pathogens can threaten entire plant communities. Changes to soils and belowground fungal relationships can also affect plants that depend on specialized ecological interactions.
Human collection creates severe problems for some highly desirable species. Rare orchids, succulents, cycads, and other unusual plants can become targets of illegal or unsustainable trade. In extreme cases, conservationists may conceal the precise locations of surviving populations to protect them from collectors.
Pollution can alter plant communities even when habitat remains physically intact. Research has shown that nutrient enrichment such as excess nitrogen can disproportionately affect uncommon plants by changing competitive relationships among species.
Endemic and Range-Restricted Plants
Many of the world's rarest plants are endemic species found nowhere outside a particular mountain, island, forest, wetland, geological formation, or other restricted habitat.
Island plants provide particularly dramatic examples. Geographic isolation can produce unique species with extremely limited populations. Once invasive organisms, habitat destruction, storms, or other disturbances reach these ecosystems, endemic plants may decline rapidly.
Mountain systems and cliffs also contain concentrations of rare flora. Their isolation, unusual soils, elevation gradients, and microclimates can create ecological conditions found nowhere else. These same characteristics can make conservation difficult because populations may be extremely small or physically inaccessible.
Specialized geological environments such as limestone, serpentine, marl, dunes, and unusual mineral soils frequently support distinctive plant communities. Understanding geology can therefore help researchers predict where unknown populations of rare species might survive.
Genetics and Small Populations
Small populations present genetic as well as ecological challenges. Declining populations can lose genetic diversity, experience increased inbreeding, and become less capable of adapting to environmental change.
Conservation genetics helps researchers determine how much genetic diversity remains within and among populations. This information can guide seed collection, propagation, translocation, and reintroduction programs.
Moving plants between populations requires caution. Mixing genetically different populations can sometimes increase diversity, but incompatible chromosome numbers or strongly differentiated lineages can produce poor results. Genetic assessment can help conservationists determine which populations should be combined and which should remain separate.
Founder population size is also important during restoration. Reintroductions established from too few individuals may fail to capture enough genetic variation for long-term survival. Research therefore increasingly emphasizes establishing sufficiently large and genetically representative populations.
Monitoring, Surveys, and Rediscovery
Rare plants can be surprisingly difficult to locate. Some remain dormant or inconspicuous for long periods, occur in inaccessible terrain, or appear only under particular environmental conditions.
Repeated field surveys are therefore essential. Plants thought extinct have sometimes been rediscovered decades after their last documented observation. Modern citizen-science platforms can contribute to these discoveries when photographs or observations submitted by members of the public alert botanists to previously unknown populations.
Herbaria provide another important source of information. Historical specimens can reveal where species occurred decades or centuries ago and provide evidence about flowering times, habitats, morphology, and changing distributions.
Digitization has made millions of botanical specimens increasingly accessible to researchers. Combined with modern geographic information systems, satellite imagery, drones, ecological modeling, and field surveys, historical collections can help scientists identify potential habitat and prioritize locations for new searches.
Long-term monitoring is particularly important because rare-plant populations can fluctuate dramatically. A population appearing abundant during one survey may decline sharply in subsequent years, while species believed to be disappearing may sometimes prove more widespread after intensive surveys.
Botanical Gardens and Seed Banking
Botanical gardens have become important centers for preventing plant extinction. Living collections can maintain species outside their natural habitats while providing material for research, propagation, education, and eventual reintroduction.
Seed banks provide another form of biological insurance. Seeds collected from wild populations can preserve genetic diversity even if populations later disappear. Conservation programs increasingly attempt to collect seeds from multiple individuals and populations so stored material represents as much of a species' remaining genetic variation as possible.
Not every plant can be conserved easily through conventional seed storage. Some species produce seeds that cannot tolerate drying or freezing, while others survive as only a handful of individuals. Tissue culture, micropropagation, embryo rescue, hand pollination, and specialized cultivation techniques may therefore be necessary.
Botanical collections have limitations. Maintaining thousands of threatened species requires space, funding, expertise, and long-term institutional commitment. Ex situ conservation is consequently most effective when combined with protection and restoration of natural habitats.
Reintroduction and Ecological Restoration
Reintroduction attempts to establish rare plants in places where populations have disappeared or to create additional populations that reduce extinction risk.
Successful reintroduction requires more than simply planting individuals. Conservationists must understand habitat requirements, soil conditions, pollination, competitors, herbivores, pathogens, disturbance regimes, genetic diversity, and reproductive biology.
Long-term monitoring is essential because apparent short-term success can be misleading. Introduced plants may survive for years without producing enough offspring to create a self-sustaining population. Some species require decades before researchers can confidently determine whether restoration has succeeded.
Removing the original threat is equally important. Reintroducing plants into habitat still affected by invasive species, destructive land use, inappropriate fire regimes, or other unresolved pressures may merely recreate the conditions that caused the original decline.
Development, Mining, and Energy
Rare-plant conservation frequently intersects with economic development. Mining projects can pose particularly difficult conflicts when valuable mineral deposits occur beneath habitats containing species found nowhere else.
Renewable-energy development creates similar challenges. Large solar installations, transmission corridors, and associated infrastructure can disturb desert and grassland habitats containing rare species. Research also shows that carefully managed infrastructure can sometimes provide useful habitat, demonstrating that development and conservation outcomes depend heavily on project design and management.
Transportation corridors, roadsides, utility rights-of-way, and other modified landscapes may occasionally preserve early-successional habitats needed by uncommon plants. These examples illustrate why rare-plant management requires detailed ecological information rather than assumptions that all human-modified environments have identical effects.
Climate Change, Fire, and Invasive Species
Climate change can intensify existing pressures on small plant populations. Species occupying narrow climatic zones may lose suitable habitat as temperatures rise or rainfall patterns change.
Fire presents a complex conservation problem. Some rare plants depend on periodic disturbance to reduce competing vegetation or stimulate reproduction. Fire suppression can therefore be harmful in certain ecosystems, while excessive or unusually intense fires can destroy vulnerable populations.
Invasive species frequently interact with climate and disturbance. Non-native plants can dominate recently disturbed habitats, introduced pathogens can spread through restoration materials, and invasive animals can modify soils or vegetation.
Effective conservation increasingly considers these interacting threats rather than treating climate, fire, disease, invasive species, and habitat loss as independent problems.
Rare Plants on Public and Protected Lands
National parks, forests, preserves, research natural areas, and other public lands protect important concentrations of rare plants. Some protected landscapes contain dozens of uncommon or endemic species because they encompass unusual geological formations, wetlands, islands, deserts, alpine environments, or relatively intact ecosystems.
Protected status alone does not guarantee survival. Rare plants within parks and reserves can still face invasive species, climate change, disease, recreational disturbance, browsing, erosion, altered fire regimes, and environmental changes occurring beyond protected boundaries.
Land managers therefore use inventories, monitoring programs, habitat restoration, invasive-species removal, seed collection, controlled disturbance, and population augmentation to maintain threatened flora.
Research Natural Areas are particularly valuable because they preserve representative or unusual ecosystems for scientific study. Long-term observations in these locations can improve understanding of rare species and provide reference conditions for restoration elsewhere.
Rare Plants in Working and Modified Landscapes
Rare plants are not restricted to wilderness. Agricultural areas, utility corridors, roadsides, community-managed landscapes, restored wetlands, and other working environments can sometimes retain important populations.
Agroforestry and other diversified land-use systems may preserve native vegetation while supporting human livelihoods. Community-based conservation can similarly protect landscapes containing rare plants when local institutions maintain sustainable management practices.
These examples demonstrate that conservation strategies must extend beyond formal protected areas. Maintaining ecological connectivity and compatible land management across broader landscapes can be essential for species whose populations occur on multiple ownerships.
Why Rare Plants Matter
Rare plants contribute disproportionately to the biological uniqueness of ecosystems. Some represent ancient evolutionary lineages, unusual ecological strategies, or specialized relationships with pollinators, fungi, soils, and other organisms.
Their disappearance can therefore remove ecological functions and evolutionary history that cannot simply be replaced by more common species.
Rare plants can also support other poorly known organisms. Studies of endangered flowers and their pollinators demonstrate that protecting one uncommon plant may simultaneously protect insects and ecological interactions that scientists have barely documented.
Plants also contain enormous chemical and genetic diversity. Rare species may possess traits or compounds valuable for scientific research, medicine, agriculture, horticulture, and understanding evolution. Their extinction permanently eliminates those possibilities.
Perhaps most importantly, rare plants reveal how biodiversity responds to environmental change. Because small and specialized populations can react quickly to habitat alteration, pollution, climate change, invasive species, and development, their decline can provide an early warning of broader ecological disruption.
Conservation Priorities
Effective rare-plant conservation combines multiple approaches rather than relying on a single technique. Important priorities include locating and documenting populations, protecting habitat, maintaining genetic diversity, monitoring long-term population trends, controlling invasive species, reducing destructive land use, banking seeds, maintaining living collections, and restoring populations where appropriate.
Cooperation is essential. Botanical gardens, universities, government agencies, Indigenous and local communities, conservation organizations, volunteers, landowners, and citizen scientists all contribute knowledge and resources.
The growing availability of genetic tools, digitized herbarium collections, drones, satellite imagery, ecological models, global databases, and community-science observations is greatly expanding the ability to find and understand rare species.
Technology, however, cannot substitute for habitat protection. The long-term survival of most rare plants ultimately depends on maintaining functioning ecosystems where populations can reproduce, evolve, and respond naturally to environmental change.
Conclusion
Rare plants range from naturally uncommon species occupying specialized habitats to formerly widespread plants reduced to a handful of surviving populations. Their rarity makes them valuable components of global biodiversity while often leaving them unusually vulnerable to environmental disturbance.
The research summarized here shows that rare-plant conservation is increasingly multidisciplinary. Genetics can guide the selection of founders for restoration, herbarium specimens can reveal historical distributions, citizen scientists can rediscover apparently lost species, seed banks can preserve genetic material, and botanical gardens can maintain living populations when survival in the wild becomes precarious.
At the same time, conservation cannot be separated from broader questions of habitat management, climate change, mining, energy development, invasive species, pollution, recreation, and land use. Protecting rare plants therefore requires both species-specific interventions and protection of the ecological systems on which those species depend.
The recovery of plants once considered nearly lost demonstrates that extinction is not always inevitable. When populations are identified early, threats are addressed, genetic diversity is preserved, habitats are protected, and conservation continues over decades, even exceptionally rare plants can sometimes recover.
Rare Plants: Global Rarity, Extinction Risk, and Conservation
| Unknown | The Guardian | 2026-08-23
Wild macadamia trees hidden in Queensland rainforests contain genetic diversity that could prove crucial for protecting both endangered wild populations and the future resilience of the commercial macadamia industry.
| Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew | Kew | 2026-05-29
Seeds from the last known wild Dendroseris neriifolia tree on Robinson Crusoe Island have successfully germinated, offering hope that this extraordinarily rare species can be saved.
| University of New South Wales | ScienceDaily | 2026-05-17
Ptilotus senarius, a rare Australian plant believed lost for nearly six decades, was rediscovered after a citizen scientist photographed it and uploaded the observation to iNaturalist.
| Félix Forest, Matilda Brown, Steven P. Bachman and Rosie Wool | Kew | 2026-05-08
The first global EDGE assessment of flowering plants highlights thousands of exceptionally distinctive species whose extinction would erase unusually large portions of evolutionary history.
| Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew | Kew | 2026-05-07
Scientists found that more than one-fifth of flowering-plant evolutionary history is threatened, identifying nearly 10,000 evolutionarily distinctive and globally endangered plant species.
| Tom Melville | Phys.org | 2026-01-19
The rediscovery of Ptilotus senarius in remote Queensland demonstrates how citizen-science observations can help botanists locate plants feared extinct.
| Unknown | Phys.org | 2026-01
Monitoring of the rare threecorner milkvetch at a large Mojave Desert solar project found substantially more plants after construction, illustrating how development and rare-plant conservation can sometimes coexist.
| Katarina Zimmer | Mongabay | 2025-11-25
Botanists working with extremely rare South African, Colombian and Philippine plants are developing propagation, germination and reintroduction techniques needed to rebuild wild populations.
| Eddie Johnston | Kew | 2025-11-16
Scientists searched the Comoros for wild populations of the critically endangered palm Ravenea moorei, a species represented in cultivation by an exceptionally small number of plants.
| Noel B. Pavlovic, Jeremie B. Fant and A. Kathryn McEachern | Annals of Botany | 2025-10-22
Thirty years of research on Pitcher's thistle demonstrates how genetics, founder population size, habitat conditions and repeated introductions influence the success of rare-plant restoration.
| Jack Plummer, Hannah Wheatcroft and Hannah Bevan | Kew | 2025-10-16
Kew scientists explain how field surveys, taxonomy and historical botanical collections are used to determine whether rare plants qualify for threatened categories on the IUCN Red List.
| University of Illinois | Phys.org | 2025-08
A reassessment of hundreds of threatened and endangered Illinois plants found both losses and improvements while demonstrating how better surveys can substantially change estimates of rarity.
| Wiida Fourie-Basson | Nature Africa | 2025-07-28
Stellenbosch University Botanical Garden is helping conserve Marasmodes, one of South Africa's most threatened plant genera, including numerous species classified as Critically Endangered.
| Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History | The Plant Press | 2025-07
A comprehensive assessment concluded that nearly half of Heliconia species face extinction threats and that many lack adequate protection in reserves or botanical gardens.
| Patrick Greenfield | The Guardian | 2025-01-25
Botanic gardens are running short of space and resources for maintaining threatened plants, raising concerns about whether existing ex-situ collections can keep pace with accelerating extinction risk.
| Udayangani Liu et al. | Ecology and Evolution | 2025
Researchers examine how climate-driven distribution changes and unusual functional traits complicate conservation planning for endemic vascular plants.
Rare Plant Conservation, Rediscovery, and Recovery
| Denver Botanic Gardens | Denver Botanic Gardens | 2026-05-26
Denver Botanic Gardens reviews its 2025 work in rare plant conservation, restoration research, seed cultivation, field surveys, and climate-resilient conservation strategies.
| Christina Martin | National Park Service | 2026-01-16
Surveys at San Juan Island National Historical Park found rare plants including Indian Valley brodiaea, which had not been documented in Washington for more than a century, and are guiding new habitat-management actions.
| Masaryk University Botanical Garden | Masaryk University | 2026
Botanical garden collections of critically endangered South Moravian plants provide insurance populations that could support future reintroductions if wild populations disappear.
| Botanic Gardens Conservation International | BGCI | 2026
Living botanical collections provide an important global safety net for extremely rare species and can supply plants for research and eventual restoration to the wild.
| Various authors | Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution | 2025-11-28
Researchers examined persistence of the rare threecorner milkvetch at a utility-scale solar project in the Mojave Desert and assessed how different construction and photovoltaic-panel microsites affected the population.
Scientists, landowners, and volunteers planted more than 2,000 seedlings of rare and threatened species to help restore Kangaroo Island's endangered narrow-leaved mallee ecosystem.
| Curtin University | ScienceDaily | 2025-11-24
A previously unknown native bee was discovered while researchers were studying pollinators associated with an extremely rare endangered wildflower in Western Australia.
| Shreya Dasgupta | Mongabay | 2025-11-14
Discovery of the newly described Megachile lucifer bee while surveying an endangered Australian plant highlights how rare plants can support poorly documented pollinator communities.
| Various authors | Mongabay | 2025-11
Communities around Malawi's Mount Mulanje are resisting proposed mining in a landscape containing rare plants, endemic wildlife, and important cultural resources.
| Zhengnan Zhao et al. | Frontiers in Plant Science | 2025-05-05
A review of cliff-dwelling plants examines why steep rocky habitats support unusually high numbers of rare and endemic species and discusses monitoring and conservation strategies.
| National Park Service | National Park Service | 2025-01
Botanists surveying Cuyahoga Valley National Park located 98 rare species at 675 sites and documented threats from invasive plants, deer, earthworms, erosion, and human disturbance.
| Summer Boulais | National Park Service | 2025-01
A targeted inventory at Assateague Island National Seashore found 16 rare, threatened, or endangered plants, including Maryland's first known population of largeleaf pennywort.
| Various authors | Frontiers in Conservation Science | 2025
Researchers compared the distribution of Idaho's rare St. Anthony evening primrose between 1994 and 2024 to evaluate long-term changes in its dune habitat.
| National Park Service | National Park Service | 2025
Mesa Verde National Park contains 14 rare native plants, but monitoring found severe declines in Cliff Palace milkvetch and identified drought, warming, and disturbance as potential causes.
| National Park Service | National Park Service | 2025
Rare-plant conservation at C&O Canal National Historical Park has involved collecting tens of thousands of seeds and outplanting thousands of propagated individuals from threatened populations.
Rare Plant Habitats on Public Lands
| National Park Service | National Park Service | 2025-03-30
Point Reyes National Seashore protects numerous threatened, rare, and endangered plants while managing threats including grazing, invasive species, habitat loss, and small population size.
| National Park Service | National Park Service | 2023
Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks support rare and endemic plants associated with unusual substrates, isolated alpine habitats, and large elevation gradients.
| National Park Service | National Park Service | 2019
Long-term vegetation monitoring at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument documented 40 plant species considered rare in Nebraska.
| National Park Service | National Park Service | 2019
Plant monitoring at Mount Rushmore National Memorial has recorded nine rare species, including geographically isolated populations of northern selaginella and Richardson's sedge.
| National Park Service | National Park Service | 2018
A comprehensive rare-plant inventory improved knowledge of the abundance and distribution of dozens of uncommon species across Point Reyes National Seashore.
| Bureau of Land Management | Bureau of Land Management | n.d.
The BLM manages more than 1,800 rare plant species and uses surveys, monitoring, conservation strategies, Research Natural Areas, and Areas of Critical Environmental Concern to protect them.
| Bureau of Land Management | Bureau of Land Management | n.d.
Utah BLM lands support 22 plants protected under the Endangered Species Act and more than 100 additional sensitive plant species requiring special management.
| Bureau of Land Management | Bureau of Land Management | n.d.
Idaho BLM manages hundreds of special-status plants occupying habitats ranging from alpine mountains to desert canyons and isolated river systems.
| Bureau of Land Management | Bureau of Land Management | n.d.
California's Pine Hill Preserve protects eight rare plants, including four species found nowhere else in the world, within an unusual gabbro-derived soil landscape.
| Bureau of Land Management | Bureau of Land Management | n.d.
California's Red Hills Area of Critical Environmental Concern protects a serpentine-soil flora containing seven rare plant species in an assemblage found nowhere else.
| National Park Service | National Park Service | n.d.
Joshua Tree National Park protects habitat for 54 rare plants threatened elsewhere by mining, urbanization, off-road vehicles, and industrial-scale renewable-energy development.
| National Park Service | National Park Service | n.d.
Monitoring of restored Giacomini wetlands tracks rare Point Reyes bird's-beak, Humboldt Bay owl's-clover, Lyngbye's sedge, and Marin knotweed.
Development, Mining, and Rare Plants
| Mongabay | Mongabay | 2025-02-05
Villagers in Goa sought stronger environmental protection for lateritic plateaus where seasonal rains support unusual and rare plant communities.
| Various authors | Mongabay | 2025-02
Forest buffers around Liberian oil-palm plantations contain rare plants including Triphyophyllum peltatum, emphasizing the biodiversity value of maintaining intact habitat within agricultural landscapes.
| Ryan Truscott | Mongabay | 2024-12
Gymnosiphon fonensis may number only about 100 individuals and occurs in a tiny Guinean forest patch surrounded by landscapes scheduled for large-scale iron-ore mining.
| Leonie Joubert | Mongabay | 2024-12
Illegal collectors are threatening the extremely localized miracle clivia, adding the species to South Africa's growing crisis of organized trafficking in rare plants.
| National Park Service | National Park Service | 2024-10-02
Removal of invasive shrubs along the Delaware River is restoring unusual calcareous riverside habitats that support rare prairie-associated plant species.
| Various authors | Mongabay | 2024-06
A global conservation analysis identified thousands of small sites that harbor threatened species, including many exceptionally range-restricted plants.
| National Park Service | National Park Service | 2024
Dune-restoration work at Point Reyes used carefully mapped exclusion zones to avoid federally endangered Tidestrom's lupine, beach layia, and other rare plants.
| BGCI | Botanic Gardens Conservation International | 2024
Global Botanic Garden Fund grants supported seed collecting, conservation collections, research, and education at dozens of botanical institutions around the world.
Rare Plant Conservation and Restoration
| Manuel Hernandez | Santa Barbara Botanic Garden | 2024-11-25
Conservationists are studying and seed-banking the endangered California jewelflower while monitoring remaining populations in Carrizo Plain National Monument.
| BGCI | Botanic Gardens Conservation International | 2024-09-18
A partnership program supports seed banking, genetic studies, propagation and other conservation work for rare plants occurring on U.S. Forest Service lands.
| Unknown | Phys.org | 2024-09-17
Researchers found that strategically placed mirrors could improve light availability, growth and survival of seedlings of the highly endangered Mariana Islands tree Serianthes nelsonii.
| Florida Museum of Natural History | Phys.org | 2024-09
Managed electrical transmission corridors can provide habitat for diverse flowers and pollinators while helping maintain rare plant communities.
| Scott Sonner | Associated Press / Phys.org | 2024-07-18
Efforts to propagate Tiehm's buckwheat illustrate the difficult conflict between conserving a plant restricted to a tiny Nevada range and developing lithium resources beneath its habitat.
| Frontiers | Phys.org | 2024-06
Researchers identified thousands of high-priority conservation sites containing threatened animals and range-restricted rare plants whose protection could prevent extinctions.
| Romain Fonsegrives | AFP / Phys.org | 2024-05-23
Tiehm's buckwheat exists only in a tiny Nevada habitat that overlaps a proposed lithium mine, making the species a prominent example of conflicts between renewable-energy development and biodiversity protection.
| Joe Bellis et al. | Applications in Plant Sciences | 2024-05-15
The Center for Plant Conservation Reintroduction Database compiles standardized information from hundreds of rare-plant restoration projects to improve future conservation efforts.
| Joe Bellis et al. | Applications in Plant Sciences | 2024-05-15
A centralized database of U.S. plant reintroductions allows conservationists to compare techniques, outcomes and management practices across rare species.
| Michelle DePrenger-Levin | Denver Botanic Gardens | 2024-03-12
Researchers are investigating whether drones can improve monitoring of small and difficult-to-detect rare plants whose populations fluctuate greatly between years.
| BGCI | Botanic Gardens Conservation International | 2024-02-15
Botanical gardens received funding for conservation projects involving rare alpine plants, endemic orchids, grassland plants and other threatened species on U.S. Forest Service lands.
| BGCI | Botanic Gardens Conservation International | 2024-02-08
Emergency propagation of dune willow cuttings following severe flooding demonstrates how botanical gardens can rescue small populations threatened by environmental disasters.
| Pennsylvania State University | Phys.org | 2024-02-01
Research on wild lupine shows that roadsides and utility corridors can sometimes function as important early-successional habitat for rare plants.
| BGCI | Botanic Gardens Conservation International | 2024
Researchers evaluated genetic diversity in an experimental population of the endangered Cumberland sandwort to improve future conservation and restoration.
| BGCI | Botanic Gardens Conservation International | 2024
Botanical gardens collected seeds and monitored 11 globally or regionally threatened plant taxa associated with Nantahala National Forest.
Rare Plants in Working and Modified Landscapes
| University of Bayreuth | Phys.org | 2024-04
Research on mycoheterotrophic plants emphasizes the importance of fungal networks for some rare forest species and the need to incorporate belowground ecological relationships into conservation.
| Unknown | Phys.org | 2023-06
Mechanical removal of aquatic vegetation can unintentionally eliminate rare plant species and reduce habitat diversity, showing why aquatic plant management must consider biodiversity.
| David Njagi | Mongabay | 2018-08
Agroforestry systems in southern Kenya can incorporate uncommon native plants while providing erosion control, livestock resources and other benefits to farmers.
Conservation Tools and Broader Resources
| Various authors | Frontiers in Conservation Science | 2024
A broad review examines climate change, biodiversity loss and conservation approaches including botanical gardens, seed banks and combined in-situ and ex-situ protection.
| Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew | Kew | 2023
Kew's State of the World's Plants and Fungi research emphasizes that narrowly endemic plants and epiphytes are particularly likely to face extinction threats.
| Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew | Kew | 2021
Research on rare African plants demonstrates that poorly studied species may contain unique chemical compounds, adding another reason for preserving botanical diversity.
| Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew | Kew | 2019
Repeated extinction-risk assessments allow researchers to determine whether threatened plant populations are improving or declining and whether conservation policies are effective.
| Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew | Kew | 2018
Herbarium collections, field observations and geographic information help scientists determine whether poorly known plants should be classified as threatened.
| Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew | Kew | n.d.
Kew's conservation assessment program combines field data, herbarium records, modeling and extinction-risk assessments to identify plants most urgently requiring protection.
| Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew | Kew | n.d.
Kew integrates in-situ and ex-situ approaches, collections research and extinction-risk analysis to improve conservation outcomes for threatened plants.
| Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew | Kew | n.d.
Partnerships with Australian seed banks have secured seeds from critically endangered plants and developed germination, propagation and translocation techniques.
| U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service | U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service | n.d.
The Center for Plant Conservation network maintains living material and seeds from endangered North American plants for research, propagation and eventual restoration.
| Various authors | Frontiers in Conservation Science | n.d.
This research collection examines overlooked rare plant taxa and the ecological, genetic and conservation problems associated with protecting them.
| Colorado Natural Heritage Program | Colorado State University | n.d.
Colorado's Rare Plant Symposium brings together research on genetics, monitoring, population size, alpine species and conservation management for some of the state's rarest plants.
| University of Washington Botanic Gardens | University of Washington | n.d.
Washington Rare Plant Care and Conservation coordinates scientists, land managers, and volunteers working on monitoring, research, and seed banking of Washington's rare flora.
| Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew | Kew | n.d.
Kew's scientific reports provide broader context on global plant diversity, extinction risk, seed conservation and strategies for protecting threatened flora.
| Dion S. Devey and Sven Buerki | Kew | n.d.
Research on Madagascar's critically endangered Eligmocarpus cynometroides illustrates how tiny populations, mining, habitat loss and poor natural regeneration can combine to push a plant toward extinction.
Rare Flora in Research Natural Areas
| U.S. Forest Service | U.S. Forest Service Research and Development | 2024
Organ Valley Research Natural Area contains numerous uncommon plants associated with distinctive Southern California soils and Engelmann oak savanna.
| U.S. Forest Service | U.S. Forest Service Research and Development | 2024
California's high-elevation McAfee Research Natural Area supports rare alpine plants including Heuchera duranii and Polemonium chartaceum.
| U.S. Forest Service | U.S. Forest Service Research and Development | 2023
Soldier Research Natural Area protects a population of Tracy's sanicle within distinctive Oregon white oak and foothill pine vegetation.
| U.S. Forest Service | U.S. Forest Service Research and Development | 2023
Granny Creek Bay Research Natural Area protects unusual wetland flora including southern populations of grass-of-Parnassus and locally rare Peltandra sagittifolia.
Conservation Importance of Rare Plants
| National Park Service | National Park Service | 2024
Old-growth grassland remnants preserve rare species and locally adapted genetic diversity that can become valuable source material for ecological restoration.
| National Park Service | National Park Service | 2024
Rangers at Sleeping Bear Dunes use historic botanical records and modern GIS tools to search for orchids and other rare plants not documented in the park for generations.
| Denver Botanic Gardens | Denver Botanic Gardens | 2024
Denver Botanic Gardens banked tens of thousands of seeds from uncommon Colorado and Wyoming plants, adding genetic diversity to long-term conservation collections.
| Keith Lombardo | National Park Service | 2022
Shaw's agave survives naturally along a narrow coastal strip of California and Baja California, but only two small populations remain north of the international border.
| George D. Gann, Kirsten N. Hines, Sonali Saha and Keith A. Bradley | National Park Service | 2018
Rare-plant monitoring at Long Pine Key in Everglades National Park combined mapping, propagation, germination experiments, augmentation, and reintroduction.
| National Park Service | National Park Service | 2016
Prescribed burning and habitat restoration produced a dramatic increase in locally rare Riddell's goldenrod at Ozark National Scenic Riverways.
| U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service | U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service | 2016
Botanists rediscovered populations of the endangered Indian Knob mountainbalm in coastal California at sites where the species had not been recorded for decades.
| National Park Service | National Park Service | 2015
Capulin goldenrod was rediscovered and confirmed as a rare endemic associated with Capulin Volcano and nearby parts of the southern Rocky Mountain region.
Rare Plant Science and Monitoring
| Jaime Eschette | Santa Barbara Botanic Garden | 2023-12-04
Rare-plant conservation scientist Heather Schneider discusses the importance of protecting California native plants and maintaining conservation seed collections.
| Priscella Vega | Los Angeles Times / Phys.org | 2023-10-23
A 50-year restriction on new limestone mining in California's San Bernardino National Forest provides additional protection for four threatened and endangered plants.
| Matthew A. Albrecht et al. | Conservation Biology | 2023-09-28
Analysis of plant translocations shows that larger founder populations and continued adaptive management can improve the probability of successful rare-plant restoration.
Herbarium collections can provide low-cost information about historical distribution, flowering, habitat, and ecology for rare plants that lack extensive field data.
| Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew | Phys.org | 2023-07
Digitizing millions of herbarium specimens makes historical information about rare plants more accessible for research on extinction risk, distribution and climate change.
| BGCI | Botanic Gardens Conservation International | 2023-06-28
A U.S. Forest Service partnership funded botanical gardens to undertake seed banking, propagation and other practical conservation projects involving rare plants.
| Heather Schneider | Santa Barbara Botanic Garden | 2023-01-06
Living collections of endangered Santa Cruz Island bush mallow provide a genetic backup for wild populations and material for future conservation research.
| Rare Care | University of Washington Botanic Gardens | 2023
Volunteer monitoring programs gather long-term information about rare-plant populations, threats and trends needed to guide conservation management.
Genetics, Monitoring, and Plant Surveys
| Jaime Eschette | Santa Barbara Botanic Garden | 2023-10-27
Long-term conservation work helped Santa Cruz Island dudleya and island bedstraw recover sufficiently to be removed from the U.S. endangered species list.
| Solomon Yimer | Mongabay | 2023-07-04
Ethiopia's centuries-old Guassa community management system protects highland grasslands containing rare plants as well as Ethiopian wolves and gelada baboons.
| National Park Service | National Park Service | 2023-04-27
Joshua Tree National Park's herbarium documents more than 800 locations for 55 rare plant species and provides historical evidence needed to track changing distributions.
| U.S. Forest Service | U.S. Forest Service Research and Development | 2023-03-20
Halliday Fen Research Natural Area protects 13 rare plant species associated with marl fen, bog, wetland, and surrounding forest habitats.
| Sara A. Johnson and Brenda Molano-Flores | Frontiers in Conservation Science | 2023-02-10
Macbridea alba is used as a case study to examine whether endangered-plant recovery efforts and conservation-status reassessments are meeting the potential of the U.S. Endangered Species Act.
| U.S. Forest Service | U.S. Forest Service Research and Development | 2023-02-01
Idaho's Meadow Canyon Research Natural Area contains unusually rich alpine flora, including numerous rare species associated with limestone and high-elevation environments.
| Various authors | Mongabay | 2023-02
Kew scientists and local partners are identifying tropical Important Plant Areas and developing practical protection strategies for narrowly distributed threatened plants.
| U.S. Forest Service | U.S. Forest Service Research and Development | 2023
Upper Eighteen Mile Lake Research Natural Area protects wetland populations of rare small round-leaved orchid and moor rush.
| U.S. Forest Service | U.S. Forest Service Research and Development | 2023
Wisconsin's Brunsweiler River and Mineral Lake Research Natural Area protects old forests, cliffs, wetlands, and documented occurrences of rare plants and animals.
| BGCI | Botanic Gardens Conservation International | 2023
Thirty-five botanical institutions in 24 countries received grants supporting plant conservation, seed collecting, collection management, and public education.
| Denver Botanic Gardens | Denver Botanic Gardens | 2023
Researchers tested methods for transplanting rare Penstemon penlandii plants so populations threatened by disturbance could potentially be relocated successfully.
Threats to Rare Plants
| Lael Gilbert / Utah State University | ScienceDaily | 2022-12-17
Scientists developed modeling approaches for balancing oil, gas and energy development with conservation of rare plants on the Colorado Plateau.
| Lael Gilbert | Phys.org | 2022-12-16
Rare Colorado Plateau plants face habitat fragmentation, dust, invasive species and other pressures associated with roads and energy development.
| Jessamine Finch et al. | Frontiers in Conservation Science | 2022-11-09
Community-science programs can expand rare-plant monitoring capacity by involving trained volunteers in collecting distribution and population information.
| Logan Novak et al. | Conservation Science and Practice | 2022-08-09
Long-term research evaluates how prescribed fire affects population dynamics of rare plants and the role of disturbance management in their conservation.
| Dartmouth College | ScienceDaily | 2022-07-26
Research in California community gardens found that uncommon plants were associated with uncommon bee and bird species, demonstrating connections among different components of urban biodiversity.
| Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium | Botanic Gardens of South Australia | 2022-07-11
Seven rare native plants were selected for reintroduction at more than 20 sites around metropolitan Adelaide to restore locally depleted flora.
| Roberta Gargiulo et al. | Frontiers in Conservation Science | 2022-02-07
Genetic assessments before plant translocations can help conservationists avoid harmful crosses while retaining genetic diversity in restored populations.
Climate Change, Fire, and Invasive Species
| Mongabay | Mongabay | 2022-11
Drone-mounted cutting equipment allows conservationists to collect seeds and plant material from endangered Hawaiian species growing on otherwise inaccessible cliffs.
| Mongabay | Mongabay | 2022-11
Restoration of Saint Helena's Millennium Forest has expanded populations of native gumwood and demonstrated how heavily degraded island landscapes can again support rare endemic plants.
| Jamey D. McClinton et al. | Frontiers in Conservation Science | 2022
Field assessments of critically imperiled Nevada plants identified climate change, recreation, invasive species, and livestock as leading threats.
| National Park Service | National Park Service | 2022
Conservationists studying the threatened Everglades bully used microscopy and taxonomic research to clarify the identity and distribution of this narrowly endemic Florida shrub.
| Austin Koontz | National Park Service | 2022
Genetic study of the Nevada primrose and related isolated populations suggests apparently similar rare plants may represent genetically distinct evolutionary lineages.
| National Park Service | National Park Service | 2022
Capitol Reef National Park contains one of the highest concentrations of rare and endemic plants in the U.S. national park system, many associated with distinctive geology.
| Susan J. Frankel et al. | U.S. Forest Service Research and Development | 2020
Introduction of Phytophthora pathogens through nursery stock threatens native restoration projects, including sites intended to maintain or reestablish rare plant populations.
| National Park Service | National Park Service | 2020
Hawaiian conservation programs are creating additional populations of rare plants across broader environmental ranges to reduce vulnerability to climate change, wildfire, storms, and habitat shifts.
| Lucas B. Fortini et al. | Forest Ecology and Management / U.S. Forest Service | 2019
Rapid ʻŌhiʻa Death threatens Hawaiian forests that support many endangered plants, with modeling suggesting large portions of the ranges of numerous rare species could be affected.
Endemic and Range-Restricted Plants
| Martin Cheek and Jean Michel Onana | Kew Bulletin | 2021-11-18
Research on Mount Kupe in Cameroon documents highly localized endemic plants and describes the critically endangered tree Vepris zapfackii.
| University of California, Davis | ScienceDaily | 2021-05
Experiments in the Mojave Desert explore how solar-energy infrastructure affects rare desert plants and whether renewable-energy development can be designed to reduce ecological damage.
| Amy Barker | Kew | 2021-03-25
Red List assessments use population size, trends and geographic distribution to estimate plant extinction risk and prioritize conservation resources.
| University of Queensland | ScienceDaily | 2021-03-08
The entire known population of critically endangered Macadamia jansenii occupies a very small area, making it an unusual model for studying genetics in extremely rare plants.
| Martin Cheek et al. | Kew Bulletin | 2021
Botanical surveys of Mount Cameroon continue to reveal previously unknown endemic plants whose limited ranges make them highly vulnerable to habitat destruction.
| University of Helsinki | ScienceDaily | 2020-09-11
Climate-driven changes in Arctic flowering times could increase competition for pollinators, creating particular problems for rare plant species.
| Charlotte A. Couch and Martin Cheek | Kew | 2020-06-26
Field expeditions in Guinea searched for dozens of plant species not recorded for 60–110 years, many of which occur nowhere else on Earth.
| Katie Avis-Riordan | Kew | 2020-02-12
Some plants survive as single individuals or extraordinarily small populations, requiring techniques such as hand pollination, embryo rescue and micropropagation to prevent extinction.
Why Rare Plants Matter
| Researchers at North Carolina State University et al. | Ecological Applications | 2020
Functional similarity between reintroduced rare plants and surrounding vegetation can help predict survival and improve selection of restoration sites.
| Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew | Kew | 2018
Tropical forest classification research highlights regions of eastern Africa containing exceptionally concentrated assemblages of rare and geographically restricted plants.
| Cornell University | ScienceDaily | 2017-07-29
Cultivation of the rare titan arum provides opportunities to study and educate the public about unusual plant biology while maintaining living specimens outside the species' native habitat.
Understanding Plant Rarity
| North Carolina State University | ScienceDaily | 2019-12-20
Habitat management increased the resilience of rare pineland croton and associated endangered butterflies following Hurricane Irma in Florida.
| University of Arizona | ScienceDaily | 2019-12-01
A global analysis found that roughly 36.5 percent of land plant species are exceedingly rare, making many particularly vulnerable to climate change and human disturbance.
| Mongabay | Mongabay | 2019-11
Kew horticulturist Carlos Magdalena discusses the extraordinary challenges involved in propagating and conserving plants represented by only a handful of surviving individuals.
| Charlotte A. Couch and Isabel Larridon | Kew | 2019-10-22
Guinea contains hundreds of rare and threatened plants, leading conservationists to identify Tropical Important Plant Areas where protection could preserve exceptionally valuable flora.
| Kunming Institute of Botany | ScienceDaily | 2019-08-29
Newly discovered Chinese endemic plants illustrate how species restricted to limestone mountains and other specialized habitats can already be threatened when first described.
| Amy Barker et al. | Kew | 2019-05-17
Kew's Plant Assessment Unit uses botanical collections and field research to identify threatened plants in poorly studied regions and species-rich groups.
| University of Wyoming | ScienceDaily | 2019-03-04
Research on Wyoming's threatened desert yellowhead provides insight into how extremely localized populations can persist despite low population density.
| Matthew A. Albrecht et al. | Conservation Biology | 2019
Long-term data from rare-plant reintroductions show that life-history and reproductive characteristics can produce substantial delays before restored populations recruit new individuals.
Ecology and Biology of Rare Plants
| Technical University of Denmark | ScienceDaily | 2018-12-07
Scientists are investigating yeast-based production of valuable compounds normally harvested from rare plants as a way to reduce pressure on vulnerable wild populations.
| Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies | ScienceDaily | 2018-08-23
Ecological modeling suggests rare tropical plants can sometimes be especially susceptible to natural enemies, complicating theories about how tropical forests maintain extraordinary plant diversity.
| Udayangani Liu, Lucy Taylor and Xander van der Burgt | Kew | 2018-08-01
Scientists discovered Ledermanniella yiben in Sierra Leone and quickly banked its seeds because a proposed reservoir could permanently submerge its only known habitat.
| University of Bern | ScienceDaily | 2018-03-07
Rare plants were found to suffer stronger negative interactions with soil microorganisms than common species, potentially helping explain why some species remain uncommon.
| Researchers at CSIRO | Ecology and Evolution | 2018
Research on the rare Australian daisy Rutidosis lanata demonstrates why chromosome number, genetics and biological traits must be considered when planning genetic rescue.
| Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew | Kew | 2018
Newly described plants from Bolivia, the Caribbean and other regions illustrate how botanical exploration continues to reveal rare and highly localized species.
| Joyce Maschinski and Matthew A. Albrecht | Plant Diversity | 2017-12
Best-practice guidelines emphasize threat removal, genetic considerations, site selection and decades of monitoring when reintroducing rare plants.
| Lauren Gardiner | Kew | 2017-04-03
Discovery of another population of the critically endangered Tahina palm improved prospects for conserving its genetic diversity, although fewer than 50 mature individuals remained known.
| Joyce Maschinski and Matthew A. Albrecht | Plant Diversity | 2017
Botanical gardens can play a major role in rare-plant reintroduction, but successful projects require careful planning, suitable founders and long-term monitoring.
Specialized Rare Plant Ecology
| Wendy B. Zomlefer et al. | Systematic Botany / U.S. Forest Service | 2018
Genetic analysis of rare Veratrum woodii populations in Georgia found relatively low diversity and suggested disturbance suppression may contribute to population vulnerability.
| Bonnie Heidel et al. | U.S. Forest Service Research and Development | 2017
Surveys of fens in Wyoming's Beartooth Mountains documented specialized wetland plants, including species found nowhere else in the state.
| Cynthia Huebner and Kent Karriker | U.S. Forest Service Research and Development | 2015
Prescribed-fire experiments with globally rare smooth rock skullcap found a temporary post-fire increase but also showed that competing vegetation can limit sustained benefits.
| Hai Ren et al. | Oryx / U.S. Forest Service | 2012
Tissue-cultured plants of critically endangered Chinese Tigridiopalma magnifica were successfully reintroduced experimentally, providing lessons for assisted migration and restoration.
| Stephen Fraedrich et al. | Plant Disease / U.S. Forest Service | 2011
The federally endangered pondberry and threatened pondspice were found susceptible to laurel wilt, adding an invasive fungal disease to the risks faced by their small populations.
| Hai Ren et al. | Plant Ecology / U.S. Forest Service | 2010
Reintroduction experiments with rare Chinese Primulina tabacum showed that moss can act as a nurse plant and greatly improve establishment in specialized cave habitats.
| Jonathan W. Long and Alvin L. Medina | U.S. Forest Service Research and Development | 2007
Distribution of rare Arizona willow is strongly associated with particular geological formations, demonstrating how geology can help predict suitable conservation habitat.
| Deborah J. Clark and David A. Tait | U.S. Forest Service Research and Development | 2007
An interagency rare-plant team surveyed more than 70,000 acres and documented over 650 new locations for 32 threatened, endangered, and sensitive plant species.
| Deborah J. Clark and Christine M. Groebner | U.S. Forest Service Research and Development | 2001
Habitat modeling based on geology, elevation, slope, aspect, and vegetation helped guide surveys for nine rare plants in south-central Utah.
| T.B. Thomas and A.B. Carey | Northwest Science / U.S. Forest Service | 1996
Surveys of Fort Lewis, Washington mapped four rare plants and their associated prairie, forest, wetland, and river habitats while identifying management needs.
Guidelines for endangered-plant reintroduction address ecological, genetic, logistical, and policy factors that must be considered before moving plants back into the wild.
Rare Plants, Development, and Human Activity
| American Society of Agronomy | ScienceDaily | 2016-03-23
Satellite imagery, soil information and habitat modeling can help identify potential habitat for Utah's endangered shrubby reed-mustard.
| Adityarup Chakravorty | Phys.org | 2016-03-23
Researchers developed habitat models to locate suitable areas for the endangered shrubby reed-mustard in landscapes fragmented by oil and gas development.
| Boyce Thompson Institute | ScienceDaily | 2016-03-18
Tissue culture allowed scientists to produce more than a thousand woodland agrimony plants from a small founder collection for conservation experiments.
| University of Kent | ScienceDaily | 2016-03-15
Online trade in rare orchids illustrates how social media can facilitate unsustainable collection and illegal commerce in threatened plants.
| Wenjing Dong et al. | Plant Diversity | 2016
Study of the narrowly distributed Cinnamomum chago combined field surveys and genetic analysis to recommend stronger protection for its fragmented populations.
| Stanford University | ScienceDaily | 2015-09-10
Researchers transferred biochemical pathways from an endangered medicinal plant into a laboratory plant, potentially reducing harvesting pressure on rare natural sources of pharmaceuticals.
Broader Rare Plant Conservation Research
| Various authors | Oryx / Cambridge University Press | 2014
Research on rare plants within complex habitat networks demonstrates why conservation planning must consider dispersal, habitat connectivity, and variation among local populations.
| Joyce Maschinski and Louella Holter | U.S. Forest Service Research and Development | 2001
Proceedings from a major southwestern rare-plant conference compile studies of population demography, monitoring, ecology, genetics, and endangered-plant reintroduction.
This research collection focuses on overlooked rare plants and covers conservation genetics, restoration, pollination, climate impacts, fungal interactions, and stakeholder participation.
| Various authors | Frontiers in Conservation Science | n.d.
Frontiers' plant-conservation research collections cover endangered-species recovery, climate adaptation, ecological restoration, and conservation of understudied rare plants.
| U.S. Forest Service | U.S. Forest Service | n.d.
Southwestern Forest Service programs document newly discovered and rare plants while highlighting conservation efforts for species such as Holy Ghost ipomopsis and Sacramento prickly poppy.
Genetics, Reintroduction, and Small Populations
| Cheryl Peterson et al. | PLOS ONE | 2013
A large experimental introduction of critically endangered Savannas mint tested how genotype, propagation method, shade, litter and planting conditions influence establishment.
| Wiley-Blackwell | ScienceDaily | 2011-05-04
Rock climbing was associated with reduced abundance and genetic variation in rare cliff-dwelling plants, demonstrating how recreational activity can affect specialized habitats.
| Jennifer K. Combs et al. | Ecology | 2011
Research on the narrowly endemic Whited's milkvetch found that invasive cheatgrass and native seed predators both contribute to limiting its population.
| Rachel J. Mayberry and Elizabeth Elle | Oecologia | 2010
Demographic research on the rare Actaea elata found that conservation strategies may need to differ substantially among habitats occupied by the same species.
| John D. Thompson, Myriam Gaudeul and Max Debussche | Conservation Biology | 2010
Hybrid populations involving rare plants can contain distinctive genetic diversity and therefore may deserve protection rather than automatic removal.
| Researchers at University of Aarhus | Mycorrhiza | 2010
Experiments with rare medicinal Arnica montana investigated mycorrhizal fungi and growing conditions that could improve cultivation and eventual reintroduction.
| Ain Vellak et al. | Conservation Biology | 2009
Analysis of protected areas showed that naturally rare plants often require a larger network of protected sites than species made uncommon primarily by changes in land management.
| World Wildlife Fund | ScienceDaily | 2008-07-06
Unsustainable harvesting of medicinal plants in Cambodia and Vietnam demonstrates how traditional-medicine markets can place already uncommon plant species under additional pressure.
| Paul M. Severns and Aaron Liston | Conservation Biology | 2008
Unrecognized differences in chromosome number among populations can undermine rare-plant restoration by producing infertile offspring when incompatible populations are crossed.
| Olivier Honnay and Hans Jacquemyn | Conservation Biology | 2007
Habitat fragmentation can reduce genetic diversity and increase inbreeding in small plant populations, making already rare species particularly vulnerable.
Pollution, Invasives, and Environmental Change
| University of California, Irvine | ScienceDaily | 2005-05-09
Experiments across North American ecosystems found rare plants disproportionately vulnerable to nitrogen enrichment, demonstrating how pollution can alter competitive relationships and reduce biodiversity.
| Society for Conservation Biology | ScienceDaily | 2002-11-22
Introduced earthworms can radically alter northern forest soils and threaten uncommon native plants such as the goblin fern.
Rare Plants, Seed Banking, and Botanical Gardens
| BGCI | Botanic Gardens Conservation International | n.d.
The Forest Service Rare Plant Partnerships connect botanical gardens with federal land managers to carry out targeted conservation actions for imperiled species.
| BGCI | Botanic Gardens Conservation International | n.d.
Seed conservation programs around the world are developing storage methods for exceptionally rare plants, including Hawaiian species extinct in the wild.
| Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew | Kew | n.d.
Grand Mesa beardtongue occurs at only a handful of sites in western Colorado, and conservationists have banked thousands of seeds to safeguard the species.
| Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew | Plants of the World Online | n.d.
Salvia dombeyi is a spectacular but very rare high-elevation Andean sage whose surviving natural populations remain poorly known and require additional surveys.
| Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew | Plants of the World Online | n.d.
Mesanthemum angustitepalum is known from only two historical sites in the Democratic Republic of Congo and has not been collected since 1949 despite later botanical surveys.
| Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew | Plants of the World Online | n.d.
The rare orchid Habenaria keayi is known from very few locations and faces threats including drought and livestock farming.
| Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew | Plants of the World Online | n.d.
Guinea's endangered tree Talbotiella cheekii faces severe habitat loss from agriculture and fire, prompting plans for protection, cultivation, and seed banking.
| Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew | Plants of the World Online | n.d.
Mapania jongkindii appears to occur naturally at very low densities in West African mountain forests that could become vulnerable to deforestation and mining.
| Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew | Plants of the World Online | n.d.
Ipomoea neurocephala is known from only scattered historical collections in Bolivia, Peru, and possibly Brazil and requires renewed field surveys to determine its status.
| Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew | Plants of the World Online | n.d.
The precise wild locality of the extremely rare Mexican slipper orchid Mexipedium xerophyticum has been withheld to protect the plant from illegal collectors.
| Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew | Plants of the World Online | n.d.
Eriosema triforme is restricted to a narrow portion of Guinea's Simandou Range where iron mining threatens part of its remaining habitat.
| Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew | Plants of the World Online | n.d.
Ruellia beniana is known from a single collection in northern Bolivia, and repeated efforts to relocate the plant have so far failed.
