The silent extinction crisis threatening vanilla, magnolias — and the world’s tiniest waterlily
The world's main source of vanilla, smallest waterlily and many magnolia species could disappear entirely, according to scientists from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and others.
The main source of vanilla globally, the world’s smallest waterlily and several species of magnolia could disappear, together with their evolutionary history, say scientists who have carried out the first worldwide study of extinction risk, linked to the tree of life, among flowering plants. They also estimate that, if current rates of loss continue, more than one-fifth (21.2%) of the evolutionary history of flowering plants worldwide will be lost.
During this global assessment, scientists from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and international collaborators identified 9,945 Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) species, which is about 3% of all known flowering plant species.
These included the increasingly rare thick-stemmed Vanilla planifolia, an orchid that grows in the tropical forests of Mexico and Central and northern South America; the diminutive Nymphaea thermarum, also known as miniature Rwandan water lily, that has fallen victim to over-exploitation; Medusagyne oppositifolia, the jellyfish tree, which grows on the island of Mahé in the Seychelles; and the flowering plant Magnolia sinica, which is native to the south-east Yunnan Province in China.
Vanilla planifolia and Nymphaea thermarum (below) are among nearly 10,000 globally endangered species identified.
Hondurodendron urceolatum, a dioecious tree found across a single mountain range in the Parque Nacional El Cusuco in Honduras, topped the EDGE list. The scientists ranked all 335,497 flowering plant species using molecular data, the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List and computer modelling, in what is the largest conservation prioritisation study ever carried out.
With some species more evolutionarily distinctive than others because they have fewer close relatives on the tree of life — such as Ginkgo biloba, the maidenhair tree, which is the only known descendant of an ancient lineage dating back more than 300 million years — researchers had needed a clearer roadmap to protect those at-risk plants.
The impressive-looking Amorphophallus titanum is also a species identified by the EDGE assessments due to its risk of extinction.
‘By applying the EDGE approach to flowering plants, we are better able to protect our planet’s rich, bustling ecosystems that have taken billions of years to develop,’ explains the study’s co-lead Dr Rikki Gumbs, a researcher at the Institute of Zoology at ZSL, which is celebrating its 200th anniversary.
Kew’s new exhibition of EDGE species, including the critically endangered blue amaryllis or empress of Brazil (Worsleya procera) and the Albany pitcher plant (Cephalotus follicularis) from Western Australia, opens on May 20.
This feature first appeared in the May 13, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.
