Fears for incredibly rare plant found in only one place in Australia
There are fears over the survival of an incredibly rare plant found in only one place in Australia. The 'precious' Grampians rice flower, otherwise known as pimelea pagophila, is a delicate and intriguing native that is only known to exist in two small populations in Victoria's Grampians National Park (Gariwerd).
While the endangered plant, which is endemic to the Mt William Range, is 'naturally scarce across its known range', botanist Alastair Robinson told Yahoo News Australia local conservationists working to save the species have noticed a dramatic drop.
'Though never very plentiful, its numbers at the known sub-populations have indeed seen a marked decline in recent years,' Robinson, Manager Biodiversity Services for the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria (RBGV), explained. 'For example, it used to be easily seen around the perimeter of the Mt William car park, but that is no longer the case.'
It was this noticeable decline that prompted RBGV scientists and members of Friends of the Grampians Gariwerd to survey the known sites a few months ago, during which they found just 148 of the plants.
Now, there are concerns the handful remaining have been totally wiped out by the horrific fires that burned more than 110,000 hectares of the reserve, located about 200km west of Melbourne, over the summer.
'The priority now is to survey in the Grampians to establish survival numbers — if any,' Robinson said.
However, it's too early in the season to conduct survival surveys now, he told Yahoo.
'These will take place once the winter growing season is well under way, allowing plants time to develop,' the botanist said. 'In order to have certainty about the identity of the plants, it will be necessary to wait until the flowering period (October onwards) to provide a reliable count of surviving plants. At this point, we simply do not know if any have survived.'
Luckily, prior to the destructive blaze, RBGV scientists were able to collect seed from one stand of plants.
'Seed scientists at the Victorian Conservation Seedbank are currently conducting investigations into the germinability/survivability of the collected seed,' Robinson explained. 'It appears that even healthy-looking seed exhibits low survival rates, possibly hinting at an underlying genetic cause.'
While they wait for the seasons to change, the team at the seedbank will work to overcome the low survival rates to 'diversify the number of distinct individuals' in their possession, with the hope of translocating them back into the wild.
'This will ideally be supported by population genetics work to ensure that the plants we select for breeding are genetically resilient, and thus more likely to produce viable offspring capable of generating self-sustaining populations,' Robinson said.
However, experts came very close to missing out on the opportunity.
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The Victorian Conservation Seedbank, which safeguards the state's rare and threatened plants, is entirely donor-funded, so the ability to collect seeds depends entirely on grants.
'We currently have a priority list of species to collect across seven different regions based on rarity and likelihood of extinction from threatening stochastic events like bushfires — two of these regions are the northern and southern Grampians,' Robinson told Yahoo.
'A funding bid to collect extensively in these regions last year failed and several of the targets that might otherwise have been collected last season have since had their entire populations burnt out, so [the Grampians rice flower] is not the only plant for which an opportunity was missed.
'Fortunately, the 'Preventing the extinction of Victoria's threatened flora' project funding allocated funds to this species, and so it was possible to make the collection in question when we did.'
The Grampians rice flower is one of 17 critically threatened Grampians endemics the Federal Government provides funding for.
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