Island plants are special. Not only are islands the origin for almost a third of all plant species in the world, but about a fifth of all the Earth’s plants are found only on islands. And that number is growing: in 2018, a feasibility study co-led by Island Conservation and Société d’Ornithologie de Polynésie Manu (SOP Manu) facilitated the discovery of a new plant that has just been officially designated a new species!
In 2013 and 2015, while working on the “Flore de la Polynésie française” (Flora of French Polynesia) project, a researcher named George Staples discovered two unusual plant specimens from the Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia. These specimens were intriguing because they lacked flowers, making identification difficult. However, they hinted at a potentially new species of Jacquemontia—a plant that hadn’t been collected for nearly a century! One of the reasons this genus of plant is so little-known is that it thrives on islands that are largely uninhabited.
One such island is small, uninhabited Mohotani. With its vegetation decimated by invasive species, the soil of Mohotani is easily eroded away, because there are so few roots and plant structures to hold it down. As a result, the sea around the island is often stained red by soil runoff after rains.
