Botanists rediscovered a rare tropical flower thought to be extinct for 36 years

(CNN) A rare blazing orange wildflower that was thought to be extinct for 36 years was rediscovered in South America.

The wildflower Gasteranthus extinctus has only been spotted in Ecuador's cloud forest and was last documented in 1985, according to a new study in the journal PhytoKeys. The researchers saw a dim future for the flower, so they named it "extinctus" because they believed it would soon die out, said coauthor Dawson White, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Field Museum in Chicago.

Most of the cloud forest suffered deforestation in the years that followed. The habitat loss was thought to have killed off dozens of species, White said.

Researchers decided to take another look in western Ecuador in 2021 to see if there were any patches of forest left and to search for the species that had lived there. Within days, the flower was found, White said. "It was total elation because Gasteranthus extinctus is a symbol of these unique forests," White said.

(CNN link to article and photos of flower) https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/15/world/extinct-flower-ecuador-scn/index.html