In Search of the Rare Plants in the Galapagos

• From the 1999 Annual Report, PROJECTIONS, Published in April 2000 General editor: Isolda Rojas Lizana
• The endemic flora project reached the half-way mark, with 50% of endemic taxa reviewed.
• The rare plant surveys continued, focusing on Santiago and San Cristóbal and expanding to Española and Floreana. In addition, several islets around these islands and Santa Cruz were also surveyed.
• An extremely important discovery was that of Calandrinia galapagosa and populations of Lecocarpus darwinii behind Rosa Blanca Bay on San Cristóbal and of Scalesia atractyloides on the hills south of Cape Nepean on Santiago. These plants are extremely threatened and few specimens remain in the wild.
• In conjunction with the survey work, protective actions were carried out, including the construction of a fence around a severely threatened remnant population of Scalesia retroflexa on Santa Cruz.
• Other new projects that were begun during 1999 include a study of the dispersal of seeds of native and introduced plants by birds, as well as an ecological study of two species of Scalesia on Santiago
• Both of these projects are being conducted by scholarship students from the Central University of Ecuador, Ana Guerrero and Walter Simbaña, respectively.

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This web page created by Jill A. Rowehl

Email the author at ig3@mit.edu

Last Edited on Monday, 11-Oct-2004