Meet the brand new tree from Cameroon named after Leonardo DiCaprio

A world crew of researchers has now reported a brand new tropical tree from the Ebo Forest in Cameroon and named it after American actor and conservationist Leonardo DiCaprio. The paper printed yesterday within the journal PeerJ explains that the actor’s title was chosen as he had “lobbied extensively on social media to attract consideration to threats for the quite a few uncommon Ebo species from the logging concession that had been introduced at Ebo earlier that 12 months.”

The tree, named Uvariopsis dicaprio, is 4 metres tall, with 15 cm lengthy leaves, and bears bunches of enormous, shiny, vivid yellow-green flowers on its trunk. The tree is endemic to the Ebo forest and is to this point solely recognized from the decrease submontane forest which has an elevation of 850 metres. The realm of occupation of U. dicaprio is estimated as 4 sq. km.

Yearly, we work with our companions all over the world to establish and defend unknown plant and fungi species.
In 2021, 205 species have been named new to science! 🌱🍄
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— Kew Gardens (@kewgardens) January 6, 2022
With the popularity of U. dicaprio, 20 species of Uvariopsis are actually accepted and the very best species variety is present in Cameroon.

The brand new tree was assessed as ‘critically endangered’, as its habitat stays unprotected and faces threats from logging, conversion to plantations, and mining.
“There are nonetheless 1000’s of plant species and perhaps hundreds of thousands of fungal species on the market that we don’t learn about…This pure habitat that they’re rising in – particularly forests, however different habitats, too, is more and more and extra quickly being destroyed by us people with out figuring out what’s there,” one of many authors, Dr Martin Cheek, was quoted by the BBC. He’s from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, United Kingdom.