I first glanced through “Rare Plants’ by Ed Ikin for the beautiful plant images: artwork and herbarium specimens from the vast collections of Kew Gardens dating back to the 1700s. These alone would make this book worthwhile, but there is much more. The heart of this book is a collection of essays on 40 plants from around the world that are rare or unknown in the wild. What’s surprising is that many are very familiar to gardeners in the Pacific Northwest.
An example is the Monkey Puzzle Tree (Araucaria araucana) with its distinctive and frequently seen profile on the Seattle landscape. Native to the slopes of Andes Mountains in Chile and Argentina, it is endangered because of its heavy use for timber, slow regeneration because of fires (often deliberately set), and competition from exotics (including eucalyptus) and agriculture.
One traditional way to preserve rare plant is through seed banks, but that is not an option for the Monkey Puzzle – the seeds do not survive the desiccation and chilling typical for these facilities. The author recommends instead growing the tree in suitable climates as a preservation technique, and recommends planting groves to emulate the natural associations of these dioecious plants. Image such a grove in the Chilean Garden at Pacific Connections!
These stories are an engaging way to study conservation and threatened plants, and the choice to illustrate using historic documents is very effective. Ikin, the deputy director of Kew’s wild botanic garden at Wakehurst, also raises some difficult questions, especially for plant collectors in the UK and in North America.
For example, African violets (Streptocarpus ionanthus) is a mainstay of the multi-million dollar houseplant industry, but has become exceedingly rare in its native Kenya and Tanzania. The author asks, should these countries receive some of the profit from the selling of these plants? Aloe vera, a plant well-known by many non-gardeners for its presumed healing qualities, is unknown in the wild. However, DNA studies are gradually solving the mystery location of its origin, somewhere on the Arabian Peninsula. When that is pinpointed, should that original host country (or countries) be compensated for this plant valued around the world?
Ikin is always eager to share positive outcomes, too. “Lebanon is pioneering a new approach new land management – a balance between preserving biodiversity and provisioning human need – and the results are promising.“ This is good news for the endangered, Lebanese endemic Iris sofarana, the Sofar Iris with its striking blend of marbled greys and bronze with purple highlights. Also hopeful are new cultivation techniques in Ukraine that are slowing the wild harvest of increasingly rare Galanthus nivalis (known ironically as the “common snowdrop”) to allow for its natural recovery and to ensure income to its the host country.
Co-winner of the 2021 Annual Literature Award from the Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries
Excerpted from the Summer 2021 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin