World’s first night flowering orchid discovered on the island of New Britain

B. nocturnum (Image: J. Vermeulen)

Botanists from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and the Netherlands Centre for Biodiversity Naturalis have described the first night-flowering orchid known to science. The discovery is published in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society.

The new night flowering species, Bulbophyllum nocturnum, from the island of New Britain near Papua New Guinea, is the first known example of an orchid species with flowers that consistently open after dark and close in the morning. Its flowers last one night only.

A relatively small number of plant species have flowers that open at night and close during the day. Until now, no orchids were known among them. This in spite of the fact that many orchids are pollinated by moths. But these moth-pollinated orchids all have flowers that remain open during the day, even if they are mainly pollinated after dark.

Bulbophyllum nocturnum was discovered by Dutch orchid specialist Ed de Vogel on a field trip to the island of New Britain, where he was allowed to collect some orchids in a logging area for cultivation at the Hortus Botanicus in Leiden, the Netherlands.

Under the care of garden manager Art Vogel one of these plant soon produced buds. Their opening was eagerly anticipated as de Vogel and his colleagues had already established that this plant was a member of the Epicrianthes group of orchids of the genus Bulbophyllum. Epicrianthes contains many rare and bizarre species, most of which have only been discovered recently as they occur in some of the remotest jungle habitats on earth.

Frustratingly, however, the buds all withered once they had seemingly reached the size at which they should open. Wanting to get to the bottom of this, de Vogel took the plant home with him one evening in order to find out exactly what happened to the buds.

B. nocturnum (Image: A. Schuiteman)

To his surprise, the bud that was then present opened up at ten in the evening, long after dark, revealing the flower of an undescribed species.

Observations on subsequent buds confirmed that they all opened around 10pm, and closed the next morning around 10am. The flowers lasted only one night, which explained why the buds were seemingly about to open one day and withered the next.

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew orchid specialist, André Schuiteman, and Leiden Bulbophyllum expert, Jaap Vermeulen, teamed up with de Vogel to investigate and describe this remarkable new species.

Says André Schuiteman of the discovery, “This is another reminder that surprising discoveries can still be made. But it is a race against time to find species like this that only occur in primeval tropical forests. As we all know, such forests are disappearing fast. It is therefore increasingly important to obtain funding for the fieldwork required to make such discoveries.”

Why Bulbophyllum nocturnum has adopted a night flowering habit is unknown and requires further investigation. However, it may be speculated that its pollinators are midges that forage at night.

In February 2012 Kew’s Tropical Extravaganza festival (4 February - 4 March 2012) will celebrate the beauty and diversity of orchids. Orchids make up what is probably the largest plant family on earth, with an estimated 25,000 species. Their flowers show a tremendous range of variation in size, colour and shape.

Mutiny on the Bounty: A Botanical Experiment

The HMS Bounty visited Cork recently as part of a European Tour. The ship is a replica of the original Bounty and was constructed in 1960 for the MGM studios film Mutiny on the Bounty with Marlon Brando.

Update: On 29th October 2012, the Bounty sank off the North Carolina coast during Hurricane Sandy. News item.

The original Bounty was purchased by the British Admiralty as part of unique botanical experiment- to sail to Tahiti in 1787 and collect samples of breadfruit trees (Artocarpus altilis) and transport them to the West Indies where they could be transplanted and used in the British plantations as a cheap source of food for slaves.

William Bligh was chosen to captain the ship and Sir Joseph Banks of Kew sent one David Nelson to be the botanist on board the ship.

When they got to Tahiti, the crew collected 1,015 breadfruit plants and Bligh allowed some of the crew to remain on land for five months caring for the plants. This was a decision he would live to regret. Without the rigour of life onboard, some of the crew resented having to fall back under Bligh's command for the return journey.

Three weeks out of Tahiti, Fletcher Christian led a mutiny aboard the Bounty. Eighteen of the 44 men on board were set adrift along with the captain in the Bounty's launch. This included the botanist Nelson and his plants, which he had carefully tended, were also thrown overboard. The mutineers had apparently resented the fresh water rations being used to keep the plants alive.

The remaining mutineers took control of the ship and eventually settled on Pitcairn Island and burnt the ship in what is now Bounty Bay.

Bligh captained the small boat, without charts, the 3,600 nautical miles to safety at the Dutch port of Coupang in what is now Indonesia.

A few days after arriving, having survived the epic voyage, Nelson spent a day botanising in the mountains, caught a cold, and died.

Bligh noted in his log:
'The loss of this honest man I much lamented; he had with great care and diligence attended to the object for which he was sent. I was sorry I could get no tombstone to place over his remains.'

What started as a botanical experiment ended as one of the most famous ocean journeys ever recorded.


The Bounty has now left Cork and will reach Belfast in a few days to continue its European tour.

Christmas Science 18: New Mistletoe Species Discovered

In the run up to Christmas, Communicate Science offers you 20 Christmas Science Facts. We'll post one every day until the 25th December.

New mistletoe species among this year's new discoveries at Kew

As the UN's International Year of Biodiversity draws to a close, scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew are celebrating the diversity of the planet's plant and fungal life by highlighting some of the weird, wonderful and stunning discoveries they've made this year from the rainforests of Cameroon to the UK's North Pennines. But it's not just about the new - in some cases species long thought to be extinct in the wild have been rediscovered.

Professor Stephen Hopper, Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew says, "Each year, botanists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, working in collaboration with local partners and scientists, continue to explore, document and study the world's plant and fungal diversity, making astonishing new discoveries from microscopic fungi to canopy giants. 

"This work has never been more relevant and pressing than in the current era of global climate change and unprecedented loss of biodiversity.Without a name, plants and fungi go unrecognised, their uses unexplored, their wonders unknown.

"On average, 2,000 new plant species are discovered each year, and Kew botanists, using our vast collection of over 8 million plant and fungal specimens, contribute to the description of approximately 10 per cent of these new discoveries. Despite more than 250 years of naming living plants, applying each with a unique descriptive scientific name, we are still some decades away from finishing the task of a global inventory of plants, and even more so for fungi.

"Plants are at risk and extinction is a reality. However stories of discovery and rediscovery give us hope that species can cling on and their recovery is a very real possibility. Continuing support for botanical science is essential if plant based solutions to human challenges, such as climate change, are to be realised."

This year's new showstoppers include;

From Africa with Love - Wild Mozambican Mistletoe …

This parasitic, tropical mistletoe was named in 2010, and was first discovered near the summit of Mount Mabu in northern Mozambique, a region which hit the headlines in 2008 when a Kew-led expedition uncovered this lost world bursting with biodiversity. Since then, the team at Kew have worked tirelessly sorting through the hundreds of specimens they collected, and they have described this new wild mistletoe (Helixanthera schizocalyx), just in time for Christmas!

It was spotted by the expedition's renowned East African butterfly specialist, Colin Congdon, while the team were trekking up the mountain, on a path that took them from the moist montane forest up to where the broad granite peaks break through the dense foliage. Colin quickly realised this species was different from anything he had seen on the mountains in neighbouring Malawi and Tanzania, and on closer inspection back at Kew it was confirmed a new species.

Tropical mistletoes, from the family Loranthaceae, are a great example of biodiversity and the symbiotic relationship between plants and animals. Birds play a vital role in both pollinating these mistletoes, and also distributing the seeds. As birds eat the small fleshy white sweet fruits, the seeds are then wiped on a branch to which they adhere. Once germinated the root grows into the living tissue of the tree to obtain the new plant's nutrients. Tropical mistletoes are also popular with butterflies and in particular the blue group Lycaenidae. These strong links between the plants, their host trees, and various birds and butterflies, shows the interconnected nature of forest species, and the need to conserve all elements in order to preserve the environment.


A Medicinal Wild Aubergine from East Africa…  

Commonly known as 'Osigawai' in the local Masai language, Solanum phoxocarpum was discovered by Maria Vorontsova on an expedition to Kenya's Aberdare mountainous cloud forests. Having researched specimens of wild African aubergines in RBG, Kew's vast Herbarium collections of dried plant specimens, Vorontsova, who was based at the Natural History Museum, London at the time, discovered some unusual unnamed specimens, some of which were unlike any she had seen before. Eager to discover more, Maria set out on an expedition with botanists and seed hunters from Kenya's 'Seeds for Life' project team, partners in Kew's Millennium Seed Bank Partnership.

Many of the old collection locations they visited had been stripped of native vegetation, but after four weeks, the team was successful. They spotted a wild aubergine shrub with distinctive unusual long, yellow, pointed fruits and deep mauve flowers that was indeed a new species. They collected its fruits and set out slicing them open to collect seed for banking. While spreading the fruit's yellow sludge onto paper, so the seeds could dry for long term storage in Kew's Millenium Seed Bank, one of the team noticed that the fruits began to emit a pungent odour and later that day they became ill. It is now believed that this species may be poisonous, and having consulted Kew's historic specimens, it also proves to be used medicinally by local people.


Cameroon Canopy Giant… 

A gigantic tree, Magnistipula multinervia, described excitedly by Kew's well seasoned plant hunter, Xander van der Burgt, as "the rarest tree I have ever found", has been discovered in the lush green rainforests of Cameroon.

Towering above the canopy at 41metres high this critically endangered tree was discovered in the lowland rainforests of the Korup National Park — a hot-bed for new discoveries in the South-West Province of Cameroon. Due to its height, rarity (with only four trees known) and the fact that the flowers hardly ever fall to the ground, it proved difficult to identify and collect in flower. After numerous visits to the four known trees over a period of several years to check if they were flowering and fruiting, the team were successful and using alpine climbing equipment, they managed to scale the dizzy heights, and make their collection, and identify it as new.

Smut and moon carrots - the rediscovery of extinct British fungi… 

The long-lost British fungus, bird's-eye primrose smut (Urocystis primulicola), recognised as a species of "principal importance for the conservation of biological diversity" (BAP review 2007) had not been seen for 106 years until it was rediscovered by Kew and Natural England mycologist, Martyn Ainsworth, during a two hour 'ovary squeezing' session.

Smuts are species of inconspicuous, microscopic fungi that are found inside living host plants, in this case the red-listed wild pink flowered bird's-eye primrose (Primula farinosa) found in the North Pennines. The bird's-eye primrose smut has co-evolved with the plant and hijacks its ovaries, replacing its seeds with a black powdery mass of smut spores. Concealed in the ovaries, it is only when the bird's-eye primrose seed-pods are squeezed in the late summer, when the seeds are ripe, that this rare smut can be found.

In a similar story, the moon carrot rust (Puccinia libanotidis) was rediscovered in England after it was believed lost for 63 years. Rust fungi are so called because their spores are often produced in brownish orange powdery masses on the leaves and stems of host plants. The moon carrot (Seseli libanotis), the plant that hosts this rust, is a red-listed wild plant confined in Britain to the chalky soils of the Chilterns, Gog Magog Hills and the South Downs.

Martyn Ainsworth, Senior Researcher in Fungal Conservation says, "It is always exciting to rediscover species thought to be extinct but to find one that has been lost for over 100 years, while carrying out a quick survey in a likely spot during a journey between England and Scotland, was an exhilarating 'Eureka' moment. To wipe these rare British fungi off the extinct list is a joy, and we hope that with further field surveying we can now provide a clearer picture of these species' current British distribution.
"Both these fungal species have been re-discovered on rare British plants, and therefore their conservation is dependent on that of their host plants and their habitats. I'd encourage all field naturalists to get out and start looking for so-called extinct fungi and find out about their relationships with other fungi, plants and animals so we can understand their habitat and conservation requirements better. There are so few of us doing this work, we need all the help we can get."

And finally the biggest new discovery of them all…

The biggest genome in a living species -bigger than Big Ben!

Scientists in Kew's Jodrell Laboratory, as part of their ongoing research into the causes and consequences of genome size diversity in plants, discovered the largest genome of all living species so far - found in Paris japonica, a subalpine plant endemic to Honshu, Japan.

With a genome size of 152.23 picograms, its genome is 50 times the size of the human genome, and 15% larger than any other found so far —it's so large that when stretched out it would be taller than the tower of Big Ben! However, having such a large genome may have direct biological consequences, as plants with large genomes may be more sensitive to habitat disturbances and environmental changes and be at greater risk of extinction.


All images are courtesy of Kew and are copyright of their respective owners.
  

The Plant Collectors - A Communicate Science Podcast

Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820)

On this day in 1768, Sir Joseph Banks left England aboard the Endeavour under the command of Captain Cook. His journey was to be fraught with danger and only a few members of his team would return. But the success of the journey would be measured in the sheer volume of plants and animals described for the first time. Banks' travels aboard the Endeavour would, in turn, inspire and lead to one of the most famous and ill-fated journeys ever made.

Listen to the full story on our first Communicate Science Podcast.

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The Plant Collector

Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820)

On this day in 1768, Sir Joseph Banks left England aboard the Endeavour under the command of Captain Cook. The Royal Society had suggested that Banks might be brought along:

'Joseph Banks Esq. Fellow of this Society, a gentleman of large fortune, who is well versed in Natural History being desirous of undertaking the same voyage, the Council very earnestly requests their Lordships (of the Admiralty) that in regard to Mr. Banks' great personal merit, and for the advancement of useful knowledge, he also together with his suite be received on board of the ship under the command of Captain Cook.'

Banks' party included Dr. Solander, a Swedish Botanist who he had become friends with in London, Sporing, a naturalist, as well as three artists and four servants. He had been passionate about botany since childhood, when at the age of fourteen he had reportedly decided: "I will make myself acquainted with all these different plants for my own pleasure and gratification."

The voyage lasted three years and Banks collected many plants along the way. The journey was not without its dangers though: the ship and crew faced shipwrecks, disease and attacks by natives. As Banks himself put it: "The almost certainty of being eat as soon as you come ashore adds not a little to the terrors of shipwreck."

James Cook, captain of HMS Endeavour

In the end, just four of the original party of ten survived the journey: Banks, Solander and two of the servants. The remaining two servants died from the cold in Tierra del Fuego; Buchan, one of the artists died after a 'fit' in Tahiti; and the others (Reynolds, Parkinson and Sporing) all died of Batavian fever.

The trip was not without it's rewards though, as Banks records:

'The number of natural productions discovered in this voyage is incredible; about one thousand species of plants that have not been at all described by any botanical author; five hundred of fishes; as many of birds; with insects, sea and land, innumerable.'

When he returned to England in July 1771, he immediately became famous and this led King George III to choose him to direct the future of Kew Gardens. Having seen the benefit of scientific voyages, Banks dispatched a number of naturalists to far-flung places to bring back plants for Kew.

He sent George Vancouver to the Pacific Northwest (the city of Vancouver still bears his name) and William Bligh to the South Pacific (which led to the Mutiny on the Bounty). When David Nelson, Banks' plant collector on the later voyage, was abandoned along with Bligh by the mutineers, he had to watch as they threw a thousand of his plants over the side. The mutineers had apparently resented the fresh water rations being used to keep the plants alive.

Breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis)

The Bounty voyage had had one purpose: to attempt to transplant breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis) plants from Tahiti to the British West Indies in the hope that they would provide cheap food for slaves.

Nelson died after forty-seven days voyaging (and 4,500 miles) with Bligh in a small open boat and Bligh noted in his log:

'The loss of this honest man I much lamented; he had with great care and diligence attended to the object for which he was sent. I was sorry I could get no tombstone to place over his remains.'

 Despite the obvious dangers, the plant collection trips continued under Banks' guidance and they added greatly to the gardens at Kew and to the library and Herbarium which were finally built after Sir Joseph Banks' death in 1820.

See our Science Gallery: a series of photos from a recent visit to Kew.

Further Reading:
The Making of Kew by Madeleine Bingham (1975).

Science Gallery: London & Kew Picture Special

Charles Darwin overlooked the Central Hall of the Natural History Museum in London between 1885 and 1927, when it was replaced by a statue of Richard Owen (the scientist who coined the term 'Dinosaur'). Owen, while agreeing with Darwin that evolution took place, did not agree with Darwin on the explanation he outlined in 'On the Origin of Species'. Owen was a driving force behind the establishment of the Natural History Museum in London. Darwin's statue was returned to the Central Hall to celebrate Darwin 200.

Thomas Henry Huxley was known as Darwin's Bulldog because of his strong defence of Darwin's ideas. His Great Debate of 1860 with the Bishop of Oxford Samuel Wilberforce was a key turning point in the public acceptance of the theory of evolution.

In an address on the occasion of handing over the Darwin statue to the Museum, Huxley himself said: "we beg you to cherish this Memorial as a symbol by which, as generation after generation of students of Nature enter yonder door, they shall be reminded of the ideal according to which they must shape their lives, if they would turn to the best account the opportunities offered by the great institution under your charge".

 A cherry blossom grows on the banks of the The Pond, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. See our earlier post on cherry blossoms here.

Above, some images of the plant life at Kew, including Pitcher Plants and Orchids. Also, an image taken from the top of the Xstrata Tree-top walk which takes you 18 metres into the air. The walkway is decorated with plaques which explain some astonishing facts about plant life.

A close-up shot of the spectacular bark of Encephalartos altensteinii, the oldest pot plant in the world. See our earlier post on this plant here.

The roof of the Palm House at Kew. Measuring 363 feet long, 100 feet wide and 66 feet high, the Palm House was designed by Decimus Burton and Richard Turner and built between 1844 and 1848. It is the world's most important surviving Victorian glass and iron structure. The structure was repaired in the 1950's and 1980's. During the most recent renovation, the glasshouse was emptied completely for the first time in its history. It was entirely deconstructed and put back together, replacing damaged parts with identical replacements.

The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, has as its mission statement : To enable better management of the Earth's environment by increasing knowledge and understanding of the plant and fungal kingdoms - the basis of life on earth.

Behind Kew's Mission Statement runs a simple maxim;

"All life depends on plants"

If you liked these photos and have taken some of your own, you might want to enter our Science Photo Competition. Entries close on Saturday 15th May, so get snapping.

Not all Banks are Bad Banks

In the last week, the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London celebrated collecting and storing its 24,200th plant species. The plant seeds are banked at Kew's Millennium Seed Bank in Sussex. The Sussex site is part of a 180 acre estate centred around a magnificant mansion.

Kew's Millennium Seed Bank was set up in the year 2000 upon the realisation that 60-100,000 of the world's 300,000 plant species are threatened with extinction. The bank aims to conserve seed (and thus the genetic information) of plants around the world - with particular emphasis put on plants either most at risk or those which are potentially most useful to humans.

The bank has international partners and together, they aim to have stored seed from 25% of the world's plants by 2020. Of course there is a conservation reason to protect these plant species from extinction, but Kew are eager to emphasise the current and future uses of plants as a reason for their work.The most obvious use of plants is in food, something that is becoming more and more important in developing countries where food insecurity has led to civil unrest in recent years.

In fact, just last week the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that "for the first time in history, more than one billion people are hungry". Speaking at the launch of World Food Day (October 16th) the Secretary-General remarked, "Over the past two years, volatile food prices, the economic crisis, climate change and conflict have led to a dramatic and unacceptable rise in the number of people who cannot rely on getting the food they need to live, work and thrive."

The medicinal uses of plants is also important. For example, the rose periwinkle of Madagascar is a source for not one, but two anti-cancer drugs used to treat leukaemia and Hodgkin's disease. The substances, vinblastine and vincristine were first discovered when the dried plant was crushed to form a tea. Drinking the tea was found to decrease the number of white blood cells in the body.

Plants are also a useful source of fuels (charcoal, biofuels), fibres (cotton), building materials (mahogany) as well as having an intrinsic benefit to the environment and our appreciation of that environment. In short, there is every reason to conserve the plants that we have.

The poet Walt Whitman puts it very well in his poem Song of Myself:

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars,

And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren,

And the tree-toad is a chef-d'oeuvre for the highest,

And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven..

That plant which brought Kew over that magic 10% level was a species of pink banana which is a particular favourite of the Asian elephant. Musa itinerans, or the yunnan banana as it is known is also an important wild relative of the cultivated banana. This valuable genetic resource will allow breeding of new varieties of banana with disease resistance. This is crucial if we are to continue to eat banana.

In the next 10-20 years the most popular variety 'Cavendish' will almost certainly become unviable due to the pressures of disease. A new variety, which the consumer will accept and have the disease resistant qualities will need to be produced during that time. The genetic information in the yunnan banana may well contribute to the breeding programme.

Professor Stephen Hopper, director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, told BBC News: "the seed bank, as an insurance strategy, is a good sensible way of keeping your options open for the future."