{"id":23433,"date":"2026-06-15T10:01:06","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T14:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/?p=23433"},"modified":"2026-06-15T10:02:01","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T14:02:01","slug":"saving-last-wild-tree-volcanic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/saving-last-wild-tree-volcanic\/23433\/","title":{"rendered":"Only one wild tree of its kind still survives, growing on a remote volcanic cliff, and the way scientists are saving it had never been done before in history"},"content":{"rendered":"

On a steep volcanic cliff on Robinson Crusoe Island \u2014 420 miles off the coast of Chile \u2014 a single tree clings to the rock face, held in place by ropes. It is the last known wild individual of Dendroseris neriifolia<\/em>, a species that was still relatively common in the late 19th century<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Until recently, no seeds from this entire genus had ever been stored in a seed bank. That gap in conservation history left one of the world’s rarest trees with almost no safety net.<\/p>\n

The last tree standing<\/h2>\n

Dendroseris neriifolia<\/em> is native to the Juan Fern\u00e1ndez Islands, a remote volcanic archipelago off the Chilean coast. It once grew across the lowland areas of Robinson Crusoe Island, where early botanists documented it as relatively widespread in the late 19th century. By the time a field expedition arrived in 1980, only seven trees remained, each standing up to 16 feet tall. Today, just one survives<\/strong> \u2014 monitored closely by rangers from CONAF, Chile’s national forest agency.<\/p>\n

The causes of its decline are familiar and compounding: habitat loss, invasive species, grazing animals, fires, historic forest clearing. The species did not disappear in a single dramatic event. It faded slowly, tree by tree, over more than a century.<\/p>\n

D. neriifolia<\/em> is not alone in this. All 11 species in the Dendroseris<\/em> genus are struggling \u2014 the problem runs across the entire group, not just this one outlier on a cliff<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

A dangerous climb for a handful of seeds<\/h2>\n

Getting to the last wild tree is itself a significant undertaking. Robinson Crusoe Island has no car-accessible roads, and reaching the site requires a four-hour boat journey followed by a two-hour climb over rocky volcanic terrain. There is no easy route.<\/p>\n

The tree grows on a steep cliff face. Ropes now support its trunk to prevent it from falling<\/strong> \u2014 a small intervention that may be all that stands between the species and total wild extinction.<\/p>\n

Each March, when seeds mature, Chilean park rangers climb along the trunk to reach the flowering branches, catching seeds in nets as they naturally release. It is painstaking, physical work performed in an exposed and unforgiving location. New technologies, including drones, may eventually assist with collection in terrain like this. For now, the rangers do it by hand, one careful step at a time.<\/p>\n

Seeds reach the Millennium Seed Bank for the first time<\/h2>\n

The seeds collected from that cliff have now traveled from a remote Pacific island<\/a> to West Sussex, England. They arrived at the Millennium Seed Bank at Kew Wakehurst \u2014 and with them, a quiet but significant milestone. For the first time in history<\/a>, seeds from any Dendroseris<\/em> species entered a seed bank.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Scientists ran X-ray analysis on 29 seeds. Twenty-five appeared potentially viable, and seven seedlings are now actively growing within the gardens at Kew Wakehurst, putting down roots in a controlled environment far from the volcanic island where their parent tree still stands. Germination trials are underway, alongside the development of long-term storage protocols<\/a> to ensure the material remains useful for decades to come.<\/p>\n

Genetic bottlenecks and biological hurdles<\/h2>\n

Storing seeds does not eliminate every risk. When a species is reduced to a single individual, genetic bottlenecks, low fertility, and inbreeding become real threats \u2014 and they do not disappear simply because seeds are now in a bank<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

D. neriifolia<\/em> can self-fertilize, which offers some flexibility. But if the tree’s flowering branches are sparse in a given season, seed production may still fall short regardless of that biological capability.<\/p>\n

Seed banks address a different set of problems. They allow scientists to study germination requirements in a controlled setting, away from the unpredictability of the wild \u2014 and many plant species have complex dormancy needs that remain poorly understood. Working with seeds in a laboratory helps researchers determine what conditions a species actually needs to grow. As Alice Hudson of the Millennium Seed Bank explained, understanding germination opens the door to reintroduction, scientific research, and the potential discovery of future foods or medicines<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

A path back to Chile<\/h2>\n

The seedlings growing at Kew Wakehurst are not the end goal. They are a step toward one<\/strong>. Scientists hope the young plants will eventually reach flowering age and produce more seeds, expanding the bank’s holdings and reducing pressure on the single wild tree.<\/p>\n

The protocols developed at Kew are intended to travel back to Chile, where the knowledge gained from cultivating D. neriifolia<\/em> could support restoration efforts led by Chilean conservationists working on the ground. Seeds and plants could eventually contribute to ex-situ living collections within Chile itself, creating a domestic safety net alongside the international one. The species would no longer depend entirely on one roped tree on a cliff.<\/p>\n

What scientists learn from this case may reach further still \u2014 offering a working model for emergency conservation of critically endangered plant species that other teams, facing other species on the edge of extinction<\/strong>, could adapt and apply.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On a steep volcanic cliff on Robinson Crusoe Island \u2014 420 miles off the coast of Chile \u2014 a single tree clings to the rock face, held in place by ropes. It is the last known wild individual of Dendroseris neriifolia, a species that was still relatively common in the late 19th century. Until recently, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23439,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_focus_keyword":"volcanic cliff, Dendroseris neriifolia","rank_math_title":"","rank_math_description":"Discover how scientists are saving the last wild tree of *Dendroseris neriifolia* on a volcanic cliff, ensuring its survival for future generations.","footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-earth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}