More than 170 new plants and fungi have been identified by scientists around the world this year, with many already at risk of becoming extinct.
Officials at Kew Gardens in London have revealed the diverse list, with a top 10 of highlights featuring four entries from Africa, toadstools from the UK and orchids from Indonesia.
However, scientists from the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew warned many of the newly discovered 149 plants and 23 fungi are already at risk of extinction due to human activities and climate change.
“The sheer privilege of describing a species as new to science is a thrill that not many will ever get to experience,” said Dr Martin Cheek, senior research leader of Kew’s Africa team. “The devastating reality is that more often than not, new species are being found on the brink of extinction and it’s a race against time to find and describe them all.”
The African species in Kew’s top 10 of 2024 are a herb from Guinea – Virectaria stellata – that has star-shaped leaves and is a member of the coffee family.
There is a new genus and species of rainforest liana – Keita deniseae – that climbs into the forest canopy using hooked structures and bears large edible fruits.
A Malagasy dyeball pea stone, or dung fungus – Pisolithus madagascariensis – belongs to a known group of mycorrhizal fungi used commercially to improve plant health growth.
Scientists also moved plants in the genus Afrothismia into their own family. These extremely rare plants, most of which have been recorded only once, have evolved to produce food without photosynthesis.
The Kew scientists and their collaborators warned that because of the range of extinction due to loss of global biodiversity, teams urgently need more funding, training and public awareness of the importance of plant and fungal taxonomy.
“Biodiversity loss is a crisis that affects us all: every unknown species we lose could have been a potential new food or new medicine that we never even knew existed," Dr Cheek said.
Also on the list is a bracket fungus found in Buckinghamshire, England.
A species of Vietnamese liana is threatened by the clearing of its natural habitat for the manufacture of cement.
Where possible, the scientists work with international partners to protect plants in their natural habitats by incorporating them into a network of "important plant areas".
Where conservation in situ is impossible, they may collect plant material so that horticulturists at the world-famous Kew Gardens can breed them in the living collections section, or conserve their seeds at the millennium seed bank at Kew’s wild botanic garden Wakehurst in Sussex.
Kew warned that the scale of the challenge is immense, with scientists globally describing an average 2,500 new plants and 2,500 fungi each year. But estimates indicate there could be as many as 100,000 plant species left to uncover and 2 million to 3 million fungi.
Dr Anna Bazzicalupo, research leader at RBG Kew, said: “Identifying new species of fungi is a colossal but increasingly important task as we estimate more than two million species are waiting to be described, and an overwhelming number of them are likely threatened with extinction, meaning they may disappear before they are even recognised.”
But Dr Bazzicalupo said there have been many positive developments in 2024, including the international fungal conservation pledge to protect and conserve fungi, made at the UN biodiversity summit Cop16 in Colombia in November.