Extinct Wildflower Found In California

Del writes "A Berkeley graduate student found the pink wildflower Eriogonom truncatum, known as the Mount Diablo buckwheat. The flower hasn't been seen for 70 years and has been rediscovered on the flanks of Mount Diablo in Contra Costa County."

Comments

Re:Just goes to show

[abb3w]

I imagine plants must be incredibly difficult to "declare extinct", after all - how would you show for sure that none are present in a country the size of America?

Not to mention, how many seeds still are scattered that might yet someday germinate?

Re:He found a *flower*

[hey!]

Hey, I'm raising my kids to be geeks. Oh, they like computers, that goes without saying. But I'm teaching them to like biology too. Instead of teaching them to react with fear and revulsion when they see I spider, I have them look closely and count the number of pairs of eyes they can find. Once we found a daring jumping spider (Phidippus audax) in our garden. This spider is really cool. It's very active because it chases it's prey, leaping on it and killing it with it's chelicerae (fangs), which are a shiny metallic green. One of my entomologist geek friends (who likes other arthopods too), tells me they make good pets.

Nature is cool, and I don't want them to miss out. But I also have an ulterior motive. Informatics was a great field to work in in the late 20th century. It still is. But the most exciting field in this century is going to be biology and its applications.

Re:Just goes to show

[dheltzel]

I imagine plants must be incredibly difficult to "declare extinct", after all - how would you show for sure that none are present in a country the size of America? Whilst plants may seem to be local to a specific area because of their preference for a certain type of soil, pH or shade, it doesn't follow that, because the ones you know about are dead, then the plant is extinct.

Good point. This is obviously a case where there was a rush to judgement 70 years ago. It also tends to be a self-fulfilling prophecy in that few botanists were looking for an "extinct" species. Perhaps that gave it the time to recover. It's also well accepted that seeds can survive for a long time under some pretty adverse conditions and restart a population that was thought to be long gone.

You're also right about the motivations. An extinct species has a certain "cache'". I know because I breed tropical fish and I have 3 species that are "known" to be extinct in the wild. 2 of these are annual fish that lay eggs in the mud, then die when their pond dries out. They don't seem to have as much longevity as plant seeds, but the same principle could bring them back. Since they still exist in the aquaium hobby, we are happily breeding them and the tag "extinct in the wild" does make them more interesting. I'm honestly not sure how excited I would be to find that they were rediscovered. I think I would be pleased, but it's so cool to have such rare fish living and breeding in my basement. They are prolific too, I can assure you they didn't die out from low libidos.

You don't "see" it, but it's coming up behind you

[ianscot]

It would only concern me if key species that humans depend on were dying out.

Please give us an example of a past mass extinction in which the dominant species on earth continued to be so after the extinction occurred. You can define "dominant" fairly loosely and still not find such an event in world history. (If you'd like to get as far as "sharks and turtles are the dominant forms of life on earth," or "bacteria rule the earth," then I guess you'll find this looming new mass extinction reassuring...)

The completely obvious point that heads-in-the-sand "it doesn't concern me" types refuse to hear, despite every environmentalist for the last 30 years making it, is that there is a massive danger to human beings in a drastic reduction of biodiversity. It threatens us, as a species.

Earth will come through it. Earth has sustained life at much higher temperatures than at present, for example. That doesn't mean global warming wouldn't radically destabilize human civilization. It's a question of whether we would live through those changes. It's self-interest.

Call for Plant Geeks

[pfafrich]

If there are any Geeks out there intrested in all things plant like and informatics then they might be intrested in the permaculture.info project. Were hoping to build a community driven online database of plants and their relationships, together with a host of related information and features. Theres been quite a lot of interesting ideas floating around with visual representation of data, distributed events and link systems. Theres a good few chalanges ahead especially in the relms of knowledege representation. Email me or see the website for details.

ivory-billed woodpecker was rediscovered too

[karvind]

Few weeks ago Cornell orinthologists rediscovered ivory-billed woodpecker in Big Woods of Arkansas. It was believed to be extinct as well. More than 60 years after the last confirmed sighting of the species in the United States they found at least one male ivory-bill still survives in vast areas of bottomland swamp forest.

Story here

Already Covered

[Red Rocket]

Come on all you natural philosphers. What do you say?

The best words on this issue have already been spoken. Charles Williams Beebe says:

"The beauty and genius of a work of art may be reconceived though its first material expression be destroyed. A vanished harmony may yet again inspire the composer, but when the last individual of a race of living beings breathes no more, another heaven and earth must pass before such a one can be again."