Open AccessRaising the living dead
Author(s) -
Carlos Magdalena
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
sibbaldia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2513-9231
DOI - 10.24823/sibbaldia.2010.137
Subject(s) - raising (metalworking) , odds , extinction (optical mineralogy) , ecology , geography , environmental ethics , history , biology , ethnology , medicine , engineering , philosophy , mechanical engineering , paleontology , logistic regression
‘Living dead’ is a term biologists have begun to use to describe those species that are not expected to escape extinction without significant human intervention (Janzen, 2001), such as captive breeding or cultivation. While the number of taxa that fall into this category continues to increase, this paper reports on a species that may beat the odds and escape its fate, after decades of cultivation at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. An account of the historical facts that led to the recovery of the species in question, Ramosmania rodriguesii, and the latest update regarding its current situation are provided along with cultivation notes.