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Borneo’s beautiful botanical bounty

In the year of its 250th anniversary and just prior to the International Year of Biodiversity in 2010, Kew Gardens has announced that it discovered nearly 300 new species over the last 12 months.

Kew, the Royal Botanic Gardens based in London, has produced a rather nice interactive map so you can check out the plants for yourself.

They range from rare 40+ metre trees in Cameroon to passionflowers with “edible egg-shaped fruits” from Brazil to palm trees in Papua New Guinea. Although discovery sites cropped up from Fiji to Iran, the biggest bunch of botanical beauties came from Borneo, where 86 new species were discovered.

“It is not widely known that 2,000 new plant species are discovered worldwide each year,” says Stephen Hopper, director of the gardens (press release). “These new discoveries highlight the fact that there is so much of the plant world yet to be discovered and documented.”

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Image: (clockwise from top left) Berlinia korupensis, Lecomtedoxa plumosa, Carapichea lucida, Talbotiella velutina, Eucalyptus brandiana, Cyrtostachys bakeri / all photos courtesy of Kew.

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