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Toromiro (Sophora toromiro) is a species of tree formerly common in the forests of Easter Island. The Toromiro fell victim to the deforestation that eliminated the island's forests by the 18th century, and it later became extinct in the wild. The tree is being reintroduced to the island in a scientific project partly led jointly by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the Göteborg Botanical Garden, where the only remaining plants of this species with a documented origin were propagated in the 1960s from seeds collected by Thor Heyerdahl. It is sometimes claimed that all Toromiro trees are derived from this single individual, but research has determined that at least one other tree's descendants survive (Maunder et al., 2000).
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[edit] References
- World Conservation Monitoring Centre (1998). Sophora toromiro. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 11 May 2006.
- Maunder, M et al. (2000): Conservation of the Toromiro Tree: Case Study in the Management of a Plant Extinct in the Wild. Conservation Biology 14(5): 1341–1350.
