Clippings
Extinction looms for two in five plants
Almost half of all plants – two in five – are now threatened with extinction, according to the latest audit of the world’s plants and fungi by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. The figure was previously thought to be much lower. “It’s a really high number and it’s not sustainable,” says Kew’s Director of Science, Professor Alexandre Antonelli. He says that with every plant lost we could also be losing food and medicines that we might one day need to survive. “The cure for Covid-19 may be in a tree now being burned down in the Amazon,” he warns. “And once plants are gone, they’re gone forever.”
“Do your bit – let an area of lawn grow long”
In the) – now ‘virtually extinct in the wild’ according to conservation charity Plantlife. The charity says unmown road verges are becoming increasingly important to rare wildflowers, with 10 species living only by roadsides. One, the fen ragwort () exists only in a ditch behind a burger van in a layby near Ely, Cambridgeshire.
