Hyophorbe Vaughanii

The Essence

"Hyophorbe vaughanii is a Critically Endangered palm endemic to Mauritius, where a single genuinely wild population survives in tropical montane rainforest at 400-550 m; Rare Palm Seeds places the few surviving mature specimens in the highlands of southwestern Mauritius. It is one of three Hyophorbe species occurring naturally on the island, alongside the widely grown bottle palm (H. lagenicaulis) and H. amaricaulis, which is down to a single living specimen. The IUCN assessed the species in 2000 as Critically Endangered under criterion D - the criterion for a population estimated at fewer than 50 mature individuals - with a decreasing population trend and invasive non-native species as the only coded threat. The assessment carries the annotation "Needs updating", and its number-of-mature-individuals field is left blank. PACSOA independently reports fewer than 50 plants left in the wild, and attributes the decline to land clearing. Despite being much sought after by collectors, the palm is very rarely seen for sale or in collections. Conservation work has enabled reintroductions into managed upland forest reserves on Mauritius, including Brise Fer, Macchabee, Mare Longue and Florin. The species appears to have no established vernacular name: GBIF holds zero vernacular names for the taxon, and POWO, IUCN, PACSOA, Palmweb and Rare Palm Seeds all give none."

The plight of H. vaughanii is typical of its region. Maunder and colleagues (2002, Oryx 36(1): 56-65) reviewed the five genera and 11 palm species endemic to the Mascarene Islands and found all of them threatened with extinction: nine were Critically Endangered and two Endangered on the 2000 Red List, two taxa survived as single wild specimens (Hyophorbe amaricaulis and Dictyosperma album var. conjugatum), and a further seven had wild populations of 100 individuals or fewer. Wikipedia cites this paper as the source for the reintroduction of H. vaughanii into managed upland forest reserves.