North West Province's possibly extinct plants...

APOCYNACEAE Brachystelma canum
South African endemic, last collected in 1956. The locality is well-documented. Several attempts to relocate this species at the type locality and surrounding areas have been futile (Hahn 2013). It is possibly extinct due to habitat loss.

Reference: Hahn, N. 2013. Rare, endangered and endemic flora of the North West Province. Unpublished Report to the Department of Economic Development, Conservation and Tourism, North West Provincial Government.

APOCYNACEAE Miraglossum laeve
A very rare and poorly known species. It has been collected twice only: first in 1930, from hills south of Pretoria, and again in 1960, from the hills of the Vredefort Dome north-east of Parys, a disjunction of about 130 km. Despite dedicated searches, this species has not been found again (@sp_bester pers. comm.). The 1960 collection has a fairly precise locality description, which indicates that it occurs in Gold Reef Mountain Bushveld, a vegetation type with a limited distribution on the rocky ridges of Gauteng and adjacent areas in North West Province. The older collection's locality description is too imprecise to determine its habitat, but hills to the south of Pretoria also has another limited vegetation type on them, Gauteng Shale Mountain Bushveld, which is found on three ridges across Gauteng Province, and also extending somewhat into North West Province. It is therefore likely that this species is a rare, localized endemic of ridges in Gauteng Province.

Reference: http://redlist.sanbi.org/species.php?species=2707-3

ASTERACEAE Senecio holubii
only known from the type specimen, collected in 1876 in a remote area of South Africa near the border with Botswana. This area is botanically relatively poorly explored, and it may be overlooked. However, a recent field survey of rare, endangered, and endemic plants of North West province found the area to be severely degraded, and the species could not be relocated (Hahn 2013). The status and trend of the population is not known, and it is possibly extinct, but more field surveys are needed to confirm this.

Posted on April 12, 2023 10:19 AM by suvarna