Suchergebnisse

One of the extinct flowering plants of Easter Island (Rapa Nui) is the Toromiro Tree, Sophora toromiro Skottsb. (Leguminosae) which is, however, maintained in cultivation in several botanic gardens. An outline of the history of the flora of the island, and of the Toromiro in particular, are given. The efforts of the Toromiro Management Group to secure its future, and its successful re‐introduction to the island, are described.

Online resource: 12 pp., ill., digital file. ; In our first In-Brief discussion, IUS and Mike Maunder team up to explore a longstanding issue facing a local Winnipeg high school trying to secure much needed green space. In this brief discussion, what emerges is a story about how ordinary citizens and others worked collectively to make a difference in the community. We see that getting involved using "old school activism" still works, especially when you introduce modern social media to get the work out. The battle over the Gordon Bell field saw community members, students, government and school officials tussling for years, but finally ending up working together to ensure the right thing was done for a prime inner city parcel of land that would have otherwise been redeveloped. While there were many important people involved in this story, our In-Brief discussion focuses on a few whose story is important to share. We feel it important to focus on the grassroots approach that helped kick-start a successful campaign that won the hearts of many Winnipeggers and gave the school a field. The truth is, this field would not exist if not for the efforts of those highlighted in this paper.

The conservation status of Abeliophyllum distichum Nakai (Oleaceae) is reviewed.

An increasing number of plant species are being lost to the world primarily as a result of massive levels of degradation to wild habitats, and in a smaller number of cases through inappropriate trading. A handful of these extinctions have been prevented, or perhaps delayed, through cultivation in gardens and nurseries (Melville, 1970). In a well‐stocked garden‐centre the amateur horticulturist can purchase a number of species now extinct in the wild. These species survive as genetic fragments of the diversity originally present in the lost wild population. This paper, through a series of case studies, discusses the ambivalent relationship between the horticulturist and species conservation.

We argue that botanic gardens, as plant conservation focused institutions, have been tested in temperate regions that possess a relatively robust conservation infrastructure and a relatively low number of threatened species. The ability of the Brazilian botanic gardens to support plant conservation is especially challenging, given their small number relative to Brazil's plant diversity and the increasing rate of habitat loss and plant endangerment. This study, the first for Brazil, assesses the conservation capacity of Brazilian botanic gardens. An assessment is made of the status of conservation facilities in Brazilian botanic gardens and the conservation status of their plant collections.This was based on a survey sent to thirty-six Brazilian botanic gardens in 2011– 2013 using information from the 2008 Brazilian Red List, and seven state conservation lists. The results identified a small percentage of threatened species (n =102/21 per cent) in ex situ collections of 22 botanic gardens and less than 10 per cent representation for each state red list. An assessment based on the updated Brazilian Red List (2014) showed that 425 threatened species were maintained in living collections of 18 botanic gardens. Despite the extensive size of some collections, the proportion of threatened species in the collections was found to be very low. Improvement in infrastructure, technical capacity, including horticultural skills, and development of policies and protocols will benecessary to increase the effectiveness of the collections for conservation aims.