In January 2020, Luis Carlos Galeano was traveling with his family through the Claro River Basin in Colombia’s mountainous Antioquia department when his wife, Viviana Aguirre, pointed out a tree by the side of the road that seemed strange to her. They examined the shape of its leaves, its 15-meter (50-foot) brown trunk, and its small fruit. It was the exceedingly rare Rhodostemonodaphne antioquensis, a laurel species known locally as chupo colorado. “We recognized the tree and looked at it to see if we could find any seeds to plant. It’s the only tree [of its kind] I’ve seen in that area, and in fact, it’s the only one I’ve seen in all my life,” said Galeano, a farmer from the municipality of San Luis in eastern Antioquia. The family’s discovery wasn’t exactly good news. In early 2022, the chupo colorado they’d identified was included in a scientific monitoring project organized by residents of San Luis and scientists from the Alexander von Humboldt Biological Resources Research Institute interested in these trees. In a later expedition by the institute, only one additional adult tree of the species was located, yielding a grand total of just two specimens in the area. This worried the researchers. R. antioquensis is characterized as endangered on the IUCN Red List, meaning its population, endemic to Antioquia, is on the brink of extinction. The leaves of Rhodostemonodaphne antioquensis. Image courtesy of David Sanin. This tree species isn’t the only one in jeopardy in Colombia. The Humboldt Institute…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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