[REISSUE] FE1.3 - The Loneliest Plants

Future Ecologies

Today is the 10th anniversary of the rediscovery of the Franciscan manzanita! To celebrate, we're re-releasing this episode from Season 1.

What do you do when you find the last individual of a species previously thought to be extinct? The two rarest plants on earth both live in the Presidio of San Francisco, they’re both in the same genus, and there’s only one left of each. Is there a future for these species, and if so, what does it look like? And what can species on the brink tell us about ourselves and the future of our ecosystems?

An update from Dan Glusenkamp:

“Today the mother plant is thriving, hundreds of clones are growing in dozens of botanic gardens across California, and baby plants are being reintroduced to their ancestral home in the Presidio. What’s more, the project inspired even more ambitious work –for example, Newsome Administration recently budgeted funds to enable scientists to collect seeds from all California’s rare plants, so they can be placed in long term storage toward ending extinction.”

Click here to learn more about the California Native Plant Society

Music for this episode was produced by PORTBOU and Sunfish Moon Light.

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