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Deppea splendens Breedlove & Lorence

Golden fuschia

 

 

Taxonomy & Nomenclature

Synonym/s: Csapodya splendens (Breedlove & Lorence) Borhidi

 

Conservation Status

Extinct in the wild

Last record: 1972 or 1981

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:

Attila, Borhidi. (2012). Rubiáceae de México. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest.

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.

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

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., Newton A.C. (2011). The Red List of Mexican Cloud Forest Trees . Cambridge, UK : Fauna and Flora International.

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.

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.

 

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