Birds perch on a brightly colored Heliconia rostrata flower. (iStock)
Tropical plants in the genus Heliconia attract hummingbirds, bats and other creatures in the wild — and intrigue plant collectors, who prize them for their intense colors, dramatic beak-like structures and showy flowers.
But nearly half of the species in the genus are threatened with extinction, a new analysis finds, putting the genus — which includes species such as bird-of-paradise look-alike Heliconia rostrata — in danger worldwide.
The study, published in Plants, People, Planet, looked at the genus Heliconia, which contains nearly 200 species, including plants valued both for their stunning looks and their interactions with nature.
Researchers used data from herbaria and field collections, mapping the plants’ distribution around the world and the number held by botanical gardens. They found that 87 of the 187 species, or 47 percent, are threatened with extinction.
The majority of the threatened species do not grow in environmentally protected locations, and the majority of botanic gardens that hold plants in the genus don’t have specimens of the most-threatened species.
Nor are all of the threatened plants on the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources’ Red List, which tracks threatened species worldwide; the researchers found that just 11.2 percent of the species are on the list.
“When you realize that whole evolutionary lineages of life with multiple species may be similarly threatened with extinction, it makes you stand up and notice that something is really happening here,” John Kress, an emeritus curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and a co-author of the study, said in a news release.
The research also contains a kernel of hope for the threatened plants. The researchers pinpointed 45 species in critical need of additional protection and say the conservation assessment is a first step toward putting together a protection plan.