Heliotropium is a genus of flowering plants in the heliotrope family, Heliotropiaceae. There are around 325 species in this almost cosmopolitan genus, which are commonly known as heliotropes. They are highly toxic to dogs and cats.
The Saint Helena scrub and woodlands ecoregion covers the volcanic island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean. The island's remote location gave rise to many endemic species. First discovered and settled in the 1500s, the island has been degraded by human activities. Most of its native habitat has been destroyed, and many of its unique plants and animals are extinct or endangered.
The Saint Helena earwig or Saint Helena giant earwig is an extinct species of very large earwig endemic to the oceanic island of Saint Helena in the south Atlantic Ocean.
The Saint Helena hoopoe, also known as the Saint Helena giant hoopoe or giant hoopoe, is an extinct species of hoopoe known exclusively from an incomplete subfossil skeleton. Once endemic to the island of Saint Helena, it was last seen around 1550, likely driven to extinction by various aspects of human activity.
The Saint Helena olive is an extinct species of flowering plant. It is the only member of the genus Nesiota. It was endemic to the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean. Despite its name, it is unrelated to the true olive, but is instead a member of the family Rhamnaceae, the family which contains buckthorns and jujube. The last remaining tree in the wild died in 1994, and the last remaining individual in cultivation died in December 2003, despite conservation efforts. It is thus a prime example of recent plant extinction. The Saint Helena olive belongs to the tribe Phyliceae, which are mostly endemic to Southern Africa.
Lachanodes arborea, the she cabbage tree, is a small tree in the family Asteraceae. It is an endangered endemic of the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is now extinct in the wild.
Acalypha rubrinervis is an extinct plant in the spurge family (Euphorbiaceae), from the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean. It was called string tree on account of the thin pendulous inflorescences which resembled red strings. Disturbance following human settlement on the island destroyed its habitat and it was last seen in the 19th century. It is thus one of a number of island plants to have been driven to extinction by human activity.
The flora of Saint Helena, an isolated island in the South Atlantic Ocean, is exceptional in its high level of endemism and the severe threats facing the survival of the flora. In phytogeography, it is in the phytochorion St. Helena and Ascension Region of the African Subkingdom, in the Paleotropical Kingdom.
Dicksonia arborescens, the Saint Helena tree fern, is a characteristic plant of the "tree fern thicket" vegetation of the highest parts of the central ridge of the island of Saint Helena. It is the type species of the genus Dicksonia.
Trochetiopsis erythroxylon, the Saint Helena redwood, is a species of plant, now extinct in the wild. It was formerly abundant enough in the upland parts of the island of Saint Helena for early settlers in the 17th century to use the timber to make their homes. It became extinct in the 1950's due to deforestation as its habitat was cleared to make way for pasture, timber and fuel.
Trochetiopsis ebenus, the dwarf ebony or Saint Helena ebony, is a species of flowering plant that is endemic to the island of Saint Helena in the southern Atlantic Ocean. It is not related to the ebony of commerce, but is instead a member of the mallow family, Malvaceae. Saint Helena ebony is now critically endangered in the wild, being reduced to two wild individuals on a cliff, but old roots are sometimes found washed out of eroding slopes. These are collected on the island a used for inlay work, an important craft on Saint Helena. A related species, Trochetiopsis melanoxylon is now completely extinct.
Wahlenbergia roxburghii, the Roxburgh bellflower or dwarf cabbage tree, is an extinct member of a group of four species of Wahlenbergia once known from the island of Saint Helena, in the South Atlantic Ocean. It was last seen by naturalist John Charles Melliss in 1872. William Roxburgh recorded it in the thick forests on the south face of Diana's Peak. De Candolle notes it in dense woods around Diana's Peak and Halley's Mount. Burchell notes it 'On Sandy Bay ridge near Taylor's. Flowering: probably August to March. It was exceedingly rare in Meliss's time, it is not in his book as he had not found it. It was probably the increase of Phormium tenax planting on the ridge that pushed Wahlenbergia roxburghii into final extinction. It is an example of one of the early extinctions of Saint Helena plants as a result of human activity, with a history similar to that of the stringwood, .
Trochetiopsis melanoxylon, the dwarf ebony or St Helena ebony, of the island of Saint Helena is related to Trochetiopsis ebenus but is now extinct. It differed from T. ebenus by having much smaller flowers, sepals hairless on their interior surfaces and leaves densely hairy on both surfaces.
The flowering plant genus Trochetiopsis consists of two extant and one extinct species endemic to the island of Saint Helena. They were formerly placed in the family Sterculiaceae, but this is included in the expanded Malvaceae in the APG and most subsequent systematics.
Mellissia was formerly a monotypic genus in the family Solanaceae with the single species, Mellissia begoniifolia, endemic to the island of Saint Helena. It was named by Joseph Dalton Hooker in honour of John Charles Melliss, a 19th-century engineer and amateur naturalist who worked on Saint Helena. The plant is now known correctly as Withania begoniifolia (Roxb.) Hunz. & Barboza, the genus Mellissia having been subsumed in the genus Withania.
Saint Helena, Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha, as well the other uninhabited islands nearby, are a haven for wildlife in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The islands are or were home to much endemic flora and fauna, especially invertebrates, and many endemic fish species are found in the reef ecosystems off the islands. The islands have been identified by BirdLife International as Important Bird Areas for both their endemic landbirds and breeding seabirds.
Sporobolus is a nearly cosmopolitan genus of plants in the grass family. The name Sporobolus means "seed-thrower", and is derived from Ancient Greek word σπόρος (spóros), meaning "seed", and the root of βάλλειν (bállein) "to throw", referring to the dispersion of seeds. Members of the genus are usually called dropseeds or sacaton grasses. They are typical prairie and savanna plants, occurring in other types of open habitat in warmer climates. At least one species is threatened with extinction, and another is extinct.
Prosperous Bay Plain is an area on the eastern coast of Saint Helena, a British island territory in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is the site of the Saint Helena Airport, and is notable for its high invertebrate biodiversity.
The Paleotropical Kingdom (Paleotropis) is a floristic kingdom composed of the tropical areas of Africa, Asia and Oceania, as proposed by Ronald Good and Armen Takhtajan. Part of its flora is inherited from the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana or exchanged later. These gondwanan lineages are related to those in the Neotropical Kingdom, composed of the tropical areas of Central and South America. Flora from the Paleotropical Kingdom influenced the tropical flora of the Australian Kingdom. The kingdom is subdivided into five floristic subkingdoms according to Takhtajan and about 13 floristic regions. In this article the floristic subkingdoms and regions are given as delineated by Takhtajan.
Ascension Island is an isolated volcanic island, 7°56′ south of the Equator in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is about 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from the coast of Africa and 1,400 miles (2,300 km) from the coast of South America. It is governed as part of the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, of which the main island, Saint Helena, is around 800 miles (1,300 km) to the southeast. The territory also includes the sparsely populated Tristan da Cunha archipelago, 2,300 miles (3,700 km) to the south, about halfway to the Antarctic Circle.
