While out to study the growth of plants in an evergreen forest on the Japanese island of Amami-Oshima, a team of researchers has come across a colony of an unfamiliar plant species. Not long after — after taking a sample to the lab — the researchers realized that what they had recently discovered was a dwarf shrub species of the nettle family, believed extinct in Japan for almost 100 years.
According to Shuichiro Tagane, an assistant professor of plant taxonomy with the Kagoshima University Museum, the last report of the Elatostema lineolatum plant growing wild on the island was in 1924.
The researchers described the plant as a subshrub species that grows to a height of between 50 centimeters and two meters and is characterized by leaves whose edges in the upper half are saw-toothed. The plant is among the 28 species classified as extinct in a red list issued by Japan’s Environment Ministry.
“Amami-Oshima is an area that hosts diverse and precious plant species growing in the wild,” says Tagane. “More rare plant species could still be found on the island in years to come.”
