Humans driving more plants to extinction than previously thought

Scientists want parents to teach their children about the importance of plants and to ensure they can recognize and name some, as part of a drive to raise awareness and better protect the world's flora, which is disappearing at an alarming rate.

Researchers from the Royal Botanic Gardens in London and from Stockholm University issued the advice after releasing a report that says at least 571 plant species have disappeared in the last 250 years.

"Most people can name a mammal or bird that has become extinct in recent centuries, but few can name an extinct plant," said Aleys Humphreys, of Stockholm University, a co-author of the report published in the scientific journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.

Humphreys said the rate of extinction among plants has been more than twice the rate among birds, mammals, and amphibians, which have lost a combined 217 species since 1750.

The researchers said plants are going extinct at 500 times the speed they would have if humans did not exist.

Co-author Eimear Nic Lughadha said: "Plants underpin all life on earth, they provide the oxygen we breathe and the food we eat, as well as making up the backbone of the world's ecosystems, so plant extinction is bad news for all species."

Lughadha said millions of other species depend on plants, including humans, "so knowing which plants we are losing and from where will feed back into conservation programs".

The Chile sandalwood, which was exploited for its aromatic qualities, the banded trinity plant, and the Saint Helena olive were among species lost.

CNN said the report is the first to provide a comprehensive global overview of lost species of plant.

Researchers found plants on islands, those in the tropics, and around the Mediterranean Sea were the most likely to succumb because those habitats tend to be home to rare species and are vulnerable to human activity.

Maria Vorontsova, from the Royal Botanic Gardens, told the Guardian newspaper the 571 plants recorded as extinct only include discovered plants known to have been lost and not an estimate of plants that were made extinct before mankind noticed they existed, so the actual total would be higher.

"It is way more than we knew and way more than should have gone extinct," she said. "It is frightening, not just because of the 571 number but because I think that is a gross underestimate."

But the report did have some good news: 430 species of plant that had historically been thought extinct were found to still exist, although 90 percent were at a "high extinction risk".

The new study follows a United Nations report released in May that found 1 million of the planet's eight million species are threatened with extinction, mainly because of human activity.

That report, by the UN's Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, said the rate of extinction worldwide "is already tens to hundreds of times higher than it has been, on average, over the past 10 million years".