Re: extinct plants

Nan Sterman wrote:
A good friend of mine in Italy sent a question on behalf or her high school daughter. Her daughter has been assigned a research report on an extinct plant including why, when, etc. it became extinct. She is also lookign for some direction for her research of the plant.

I should think it would be a good idea if she was to study some plant from the Mediterranean ambit which is of course her local area.

What springs to mind is one or other of the wild Cyclamen species. I am not sure if any of these is totally extinct in the wild, though some may be nearly so, but up to a few years ago (maybe still) the populations of many species were being seriously reduced yearly by locals collecting the wild corms to export to growers in other areas. So severe has the toll on many of the species from this practice that several of the rarer ones are at least approaching extinction in the wild and responsible organizations like the major alpine societies in Britain and America, have in recent years encouraged their countries to legislate to prevent wild corms or even wild-gathered seed entering their countries, in an attempt to protect any remaining wild plants.

The reason for the sad plight of these beautiful plants is obviously a combination of human greed and ignorance. There is, I think, in all such cases of over-exploitation a lack of appreciation of the fact that no natural resource is infinite and any one can be irretrievably lost be lost by over-exploitation. It is of course very much a parallel situtation to what is happening to many of the world's fisheries.

Moira
--
Tony & Moira Ryan,
Wainuiomata, North Island, NZ.     Pictures of our garden at:-
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