This is a fantasy plant, and is represented solely as an artistic, fantasy specimen. This is a hobby for me, and I enjoy making plants that don’t actually exist, but could.
Rhaphidophora Glomerati “2005”
R. Glomerati is described as a compact clustering shingle plant. It is entirely epiphytic growing at very slow rates. Discovered In 2003, as forest was being cleared in Papua, this plant was never fully documented. Botanists heard a of the plant and we’re dispatched to investigate the new species however before they could get there the host trees for R. Glomerati were cut down for lumber production. Unfortunately, due to widespread destruction and this plant’s incredibly slow growth habit, there have been no sightings of R. Glomerati since 2005 when a field expedition spotted a single plant and documented it’s coordinates. While more information was gathered on this species, using satellite imagery we can see that the coordinates listed have now been cleared heavily. It is suspected that the plant is now extinct in the wild.
Additional documentation of R. Glomerati and a single leaf specimen was collected by scientists in 2005. Atomic absorption spectrophotometry showed alkaloids present in the plant that pharmacologists later determined could have exhibited extreme anti-cancer properties. This aligns with reports of natives to the island using R. Pinnata (a close relative of R. Glomerati) for traditional anti-cancer medicinal uses.
“750,000 hectares of forest were cleared in Papua between 2001-2019—about 2 percent of the island’s forests. Of that total, the analysis found that about 28 percent was cleared for industrial plantations (oil palm and pulpwood), 23 percent for shifting cultivation, 16 percent for selective logging, 11 percent for rivers and lakes expanding or changing course, 15 percent for urban expansion and roads, 5 percent for fires, and 2 percent for mining.” - NASA.gov
Now extinct, conservation efforts should continue to protect the delicate ecosystems that foster now-extinct species such as R. Glomerati. Protecting our rainforests is as important as ever to make sure plants like this make it into the future. Using AI, we can now interpret plants that may have existed but are now extinct, or could still be out there at risk or becoming one of the nearly 137 species that are driven to extinction every day.
I find that it is easier for people to take notice of the harm that arises from deforestation when they can visually imagine the damage occurring. Anyone can throw statistics at someone, but showing the possible beauty that is at risk daily tends to open eyes a bit more. I hope that by following my series of 137 fantasy plants and stories, you’ll appreciate more than ever the 137 unidentified and lost species every day from deforestation. I strive to provide fictitious stories that still contain real facts, maps, and prominent figures. These stories are not real, but the years of deforestation are accurate, as is the satellite imagery.