Deppea splendens Breedlove & Lorence (1987:43)
Golden fuschia
Taxonomy & Nomenclature
Synonyms: Csapodya splendens (Breedlove & Lorence) Borhidi in Acta Bot. Hung. 46: 82 (2004); Csapodya sousae Borhidi & Reyes-García in Acta Bot. Hung. 49: 20 (2007)
Conservation Status
Extinct in the Wild (Fuentes et al., 2020; Dalrymple et al., 2023; Smith et al., 2023; Christenhusz & Govaerts, 2024; POWO, 2024)
Last record: 1972 (source); 1981 (Fuentes et al., 2020); pre-1986 (Christenhusz & Govaerts, 2024)
IUCN RedList status: Extinct in the Wild
"It’s likely that Dennis Breedlove, then curator of botany at the California Academy of Sciences, couldn’t believe his eyes. In 1972, while hiking the rugged terrain of a cloud forest in the mountains of Chiapis, in Southern Mexico, he came upon a magnificent species of shrub unknown to science. The plants — growing at an altitude of 6,600 feet — were in full bloom, displaying dangling clusters of gold-and-pink blossoms that were providing nectar for squadrons of hummingbirds. Named Deppea splendens by botanical taxonomists, it was an incredible discovery.
But when Breedlove returned to the site just 14 years later, he found the area cleared for agriculture and the Deppea splendens obliterated. Subsequent searches of nearby cloud forest remnants were unsuccessful, and the species is considered extinct in the wild. Luckily, Breedlove had collected seeds in 1972, and cultivated plants — known as golden fuchsia — are thriving in places like San Francisco where the climate approximates the species’ original habitat. Unfortunately, Central Florida’s warmth prevents Deppea from growing here."
Source: http://www.theledger.com/entertainmentlife/20180913/reynolds-grow-plants-that-are-extinct-in-wild
Distribution
Chiapas, Mexico
Biology & Ecology
Hypodigm
Media
References
Original scientific description:
Borhidi, A. and Lorence, D. H. (1987). New species from Deppea in Chiapas, Mexico. Phytologia 63(1): 43-47.
Other references:
Bachman, S., Moat, J., Hill, A. W., de Torre, J. and Scott, B. (2011). Supporting Red List threat assessments with GeoCAT: Geospatial conservation assessment tool. . ZooKeys 150: 117-126.
Borhidi, Attila. (2006). Rubiáceas de México: 1-512. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest.
Borhidi, Attila. (2012). Rubiáceae de México. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest.
Christenhusz, Maarten J. M. and Govaerts, Rafaël. (2023). Uitgestorven. Op plantenjacht rond de wereld: 1-511. Sterck & De Vreese.
Christenhusz, Maarten J. M. and Govaerts, Rafaël. (2024). Plant extinction in the Anthropocene. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society. https://doi.org/10.1093/botlinnean/boae045 [Appendix S1]
Dalrymple, S. E., Abeli, T., Ewen, J. G., Gilbert, T. C., Hogg, C. J., Lloyd, N. A., Moehrenschlager, A., Rodríguez, J. P. and Smith, D. (2023). Addressing Threats and Ecosystem Intactness to Enable Action for Extinct in the Wild Species. Diversity 15: 268. https://doi.org/10.3390/d15020268
Davidse, G. et al. (eds.). (2012). Flora Mesoamericana 4(2): 1-533. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México, D.F.
Foster, P. (2001). The potential negative impacts of global climate change on tropical montane cloud forests. Earth-Science Reviews 55: 73-106.
Fuentes, A. C. D., Martínez Salas, E. and Samain, M.-S. (2020). Deppea splendens. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2020: e.T126612397A126613386. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2020-3.RLTS.T126612397A126613386.en. Accessed on 11 June 2022.
González-Espinosa, M., Lorea-Hernández, J., Ibarra Manriquez, F. and Newton, A. C. (2011). The Red List of Mexican Cloud Forest Trees. Cambridge, UK: Fauna and Flora International.
Govaerts, R. (2003). World Checklist of Selected Plant Families Database in ACCESS: 1-216203. The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
Lawton, R.O., Nair, U.S., Pielke, R.A. and Welch, R.M. (2001). Climatic Impact of Tropical Lowland Deforestation on Nearby Montane Cloud Forests. Science 294: 584-587.
POWO. (2024). Plants of the World Online (online resource). Facilitated by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, United Kingdom. Available at: https://powo.science.kew.org/ [Accessed 19 October 2024]
Smith, Donal et al. (2023). Extinct in the wild: The precarious state of Earth’s most threatened group of species. Science 379(6634): eadd2889. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.add2889
Wiken, Ed., Jiménez Nava, F. and Griffith, G. (2011). North American Terrestrial Ecoregions—Level III. Commission for Environmental Cooperation, Montreal, Canada.