Presentation prepared and delivered by Dr Colin Clubbe, Head of Conservation Science at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, at the Joseph Hooker bicentenary conference 'The Making of Modern Botany' at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. 30 June 2017. ABSTRACT: During Joseph Hooker’s first expedition to the Antarctic (1839-1843) he stopped at St Helena, Ascension and the Falkland Islands. He made plant collections on each island and these specimens are housed in Kew’s Herbarium. Notable amongst his collections is the type specimen of a unique Ascension Island fern, Anogramma ascensionis, thought extinct until it’s rediscovery in 2009. Hooker’s specimen was central to our rediscovery. This talk will explore Hooker’s legacy in the UK Overseas Territories (UKOTs) through reflections on the ideas he developed on island floras and the specimens he collected in the South Atlantic UKOTs.

1. Joseph Hooker’s Legacy
in the UK Overseas Territories
Colin Clubbe
Conservation Science
Royal Botanic Gardens Kew

4. "No future botanist will probably
ever visit the countries whither I am
going, and that is a great attraction."
J.D. Hooker’s letter to his father
before the Erebus set sail

5. UK
Ascension
Island
Falkland
Islands
St Helena
Antarctica

8. Kew’s UK Overseas Territories Programme

9. Mellissia begoniifolia St Helena
Nassauvia serpens Falkland IslandsEpidendrum montserratense Montserrat
Acacia anegadensis British Virgin Islands Pteris adscensionis Ascension Island
Hohenbergia caymanensis Cayman Islands

10. King Penguins - Falkland Islands Montserrat’s ‘mountain chicken’ frog
Nesting green turtle on Ascension
St Helena’s tiny endemic blushing snail
on the endemic Jellico
St Helena’s endemic wire bird
Cayman’s endemic blue iguana

11. Dwarf Shrub Heath - Falkland Islands
Tropical Wet Forest - Montserrat
Xerophytic Shrubland - Grand Cayman
Cloud Forest - St Helena
Caribbean Dry Forest
British Virgin Islands

13. Ascension 1843:
type specimen of
Anogramma
ascensionis
collected by
Joseph Hooker

14. 2003
Annual Plant Census

15. 2010: Four small plants re-discovered
on Green Mountain

18. 2010
2010: Down-listed from Extinct to
Critically Endangered

19. Hand weeding
invasive
maidenhair fern

20. Biological Teraforming
“The consequences to the native
vegetation of the peak will, I fear, be
fatal and especially to the rich carpet
of ferns that clothed the top of the
mountain when I visited."
Sir Joseph Hooker
1847-1850 Kew dispatched 300 plants
to Ascension “mostly tress and shrubs
calculated to bear exposure to the sea
breezes and the most powerful winds”
By end 1870s >5,000 trees from Kew
and the Botanic Gardens in Cape Town
were planted on Ascension

22. Ascension's Flora Today
•249 wild species
•13 considered native
•7 endemic [plus 3 extinct endemics]
•236 non native/ invasive
•Non-natives cover @99% of
vegetated areas

23. Biodiversity
Action Plans
• Developed and
agreed in 2009
• Formalised in
2015 with
individual Species
Action Plans for
each species

25. Tussac (Poa flabellate) Restoration

26. https://stateoftheworldsplants.com/

28. New Discoveries from the UKOTS
Eragrostis episcopulus
St Helena endemic
(2013)
Nassauvia falklandica
Falkland Islands
endemic (2012)

29. • Specimens geo-referenced
• Baseline dataset to inform conservation
© Phil Lambdon

31. Thank You