What plant came back from extinction?
By Chelsie Vandaveer
July 31, 2003
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Rupert C. Barneby was a self-taught botanist. In the 1950s, he was a visiting scholar at the New York Botanical Garden and accepted a position as honorary curator of western botany. Barneby became an expert in the Leguminosae (Fabaceae), the bean family.
In 1957, Barneby had a sample of an unknown legume. It came from a small ranch in California that had been cleared in the 1930s and '40s. The legume was blamed for the death of sheep. Barneby classified the plant as an Astragalus, a genus with some notorious members known as "locoweeds". He gave it the epithet, agnicidus, "lamb-killer". Oddly, by the time Barneby named the plant, it was already extinct.
No one is certain the lamb-killer was really responsible for the death of the sheep, but the landowners had been advised that since it appeared related to the locoweeds, they should rid their property of it. It was a limited population, endemic to Humboldt County. By 1954 only one plant was left. Then the last lamb-killer was gone.
In 1985, bulldozers cleared fallen trees deemed a fire hazard. Two years later where the trees were removed, twenty-five Astragalus agnicidus [a strag' a lus ag nis' i dus] were found. Seventy-five were found nearby. Buried in the soil, the seeds had remained viable for over thirty years.
Plant ecologists have discovered Astragalus agnicidus is a pioneering species preferring disturbed habitats. A second population was discovered in 1999 and a third in 2000, the year Rupert Barneby died. Today there are over 5000 individuals. The plant is now called the Humboldt milkvetch. The landowners of that ranch are working as hard to protect it as their predecessors worked to destroy it. Sometimes nature gives us a second chance.
Calflora, Information on California plants for education, research and conservation has more information about Humboldt milkvetch, Astragalus agnicidus. Click on the image for more photos. To learn more about the plant, click on the link:
http://www.calflora.org/cgi-bin/species_query.cgi?where-calrecnum=795
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Suggested Reading:
What pain-killer came from a strewing herb? Herbal Folklore - December 10, 2001
What was spirit weed? Herbal Folklore - October 11, 2004
What jessamine caused many deaths? Herbal Folklore - February 23, 2004
What is a sorrowful tree? What's in a Name? - October 19, 2001
What is myrrh? Herbal Folklore - July 23, 2001
Frankincense and the Lost City of Ubar Herbal Folklore - December 24, 2001
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Peruvian Pansy Cardigan
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Indigenous Aymara and Quecha women working in a craft cooperative in the Peruvian highlands use only hand looms to knit this eye-catching spray of purple pansies. Inspired by the flower sellers in local mercados, they blend shades of purple and fuchsia to create a large and bright motif on a background of charcoal gray.
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Nepalese Velvet Vest
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The trapunto quilting that adds eye-catching detail and texture to this reversible vest is a traditional decoration found on the garments of Nepal's Gurung tribe.
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Machine wash. Handmade by artisans in Nepal.
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Bolivian Manta Tapestry Briefcase
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Framed by rustic, hand-tooled leather, this practical traveler's briefcase expresses your cultural appreciation as it highlights an authentic piece of textile tradition.
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Men's Irish Donegal Tweed Sweater
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Andean Mountain Alpaca Sweater
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Soaring above Lake Titicaca in northern Bolivia, Illampu mountain is revered as a god by Bolivia's indigenous people and is the inspiration for this alpaca sweater.
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Hand-wash or dry clean. Handmade of 100% alpaca wool by local artisans in Bolivia.
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Microsuede 39 Pocket Travel Jacket
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Wollemi Pine
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This survivor from the age of the dinosaurs is one of the greatest living fossils discovered in the 20th century. The Wollemi pine is one of the world's oldest and rarest tree species, belonging to a 200-million-year-old plant family thought to have been extinct for more than two million years.
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Previously known only from fossil records, it was presumed extinct until a single tree was found in the Wollemi National Park, Australia, in 1994. Subsequent research discovered 100 adult trees that have survived in a single canyon in this wild and rugged area.
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