New Guinea is an island on which grow 13.5 thousand species of plants, which puts him in first place in the world for the variety of flora. According to The Guardian, scientists have discovered 19 percent more plants than in Madagascar, which previously held the top spot of this ranking, compiled by biologists.
According to the newspaper, the study took 99 botanists from 56 institutions in 19 countries. They studied samples collected by different travellers on the island, the earliest of them date to the early eighteenth century. In the end, it was revealed 13 634 different kinds of plants, and this despite the fact that not all collected in Europe, the collection they were studied. Moreover, as scientists say, a large part of the island remains unexplored, in the next 50 years, according to them, it will be possible to find at least another 4 thousand species of plants.
“This is heaven, full of life,” said lead researcher Rodrigo Camara-Leret, a biologist from the University of Zurich. According to him, New Guinea, owned by the two States, is the most mountainous and largest tropical island in the world, with snowy peaks that reach 5000 meters in height. “This allows you to create different types of habitats, such as mangroves, swamp forests, lowland rainforests and mountain forests with lots of endemic species. And at the top, just below the limit of plant growth, are Alpine meadows,” – said the expert.
According to scientists, the island has a young and diverse geological history, a species had formed there over the last million years, many of them grow only there. So, 98 percent of the types of Heather are endemic, as 96 percent of African violets and 95 percent of the types of ginger.
the earliest specimens of plants from New Guinea was brought to Europe by the Englishman William Dampier in 1700. He is considered one of the most famous privateers and was named scientist pirate for a description of his travels and contributions to the development of geographical Sciences. Over the next centuries, plants from the island were collected by scientists and were sent to various institutions around the world, but inland travelers and explorers did not come. There, scientists only managed to get in the middle of the twentieth century. As a result, for 50 years was opened a new 2800 species of plants.
