I'm in the Kew Madagascar Conservation Centre (KMCC) this week to talk to the team here about progress on the Zavamaniry Gasy project. My last message was on 29th July 2014! I can't believe the months have flown by. I'm happy to report some impressive statistics on the project - since July we have added over 500 new observations (521 at time of writing), giving a grand total of 532 since we started. We are now up to 331 taxa and a healthy number of new members (25).

At present 'rakotoarinivo' has the highest number of observations with a stunning set of palms occurring all over Madagascar. However, he is fast being caught up by 'romer' who just posted his 100th observation. Well done guys! I particularly like a recent observation of a fungi from romer:

Blue Basidiomycota - can anyone provide an ID?!

In other news we had a meeting with our friends from Conservation International, Missouri Botanic Garden, the Rebioma Project, and the University of Antananarivo at the California Academy of Sciences office here in Antananarivo. I presented the project and we discussed plans for a collaborative BioBlitz to be held in September this year. This must be the first plant oriented BioBlitz in Madagascar! Very exciting! We'll keep you posted as the plans develop.

Steve