Bold plan to save meat-eating plant from extinction in England
The English sundew has been all but wiped out in the UK - but a young botanist is helping the plant to make a comeback.
Wednesday 4 September 2019 15:24, UK
A species of meat-eating plant that was beloved by Charles Darwin is set to make a comeback in England thanks to the work of a young botanist.
The English sundew, or Drosera, has small tentacles which covers its laminae in order to attract, trap and digest small insects.
Charles Darwin was known to have loved the plant and once said of it: "I care more about Drosera than the origin of all species in the world."
He produced drawing after drawing of it for his books.
The plant has been facing extinction and has been red-listed - meaning it can only be found in less than 20 sites in the UK after the bogs where it lived were drained and redeveloped.
As a result of the redevelopment, more than 99% of the plant's population was wiped out in the North West alone.
Now that the bogs have been improved, Joshua Styles, a graduate from Edge Hill University in Lancashire, has an ambitious plan to reintroduce the fly-eating plants back to the UK countryside.
He told Sky News that he has cultivated leaf cuttings from the plant's remaining population in Cumbria, and brought them to areas around Cheshire and north Lancashire.
Mr Styles has, alongside teams from Chester Zoo and the Wildlife Trust, planted 10 of the cut-offs in Risley Moss in Lancashire.
When it flowers, the plants should produce seed that will hopefully fertilise the ground around them.
The plant's tentacles capture its prey by folding towards the leaf and the insect to trap it.
Once it has consumed the insect, it leaves behind its exoskeleton in its unfurled leaves.
Other plants in the English sundew's family include the venus flytrap.
Mr Styles said that people should care about this because "conserving rare plants and maintaining biodiversity is crucial to life on Earth".
He added that reintroducing plants in this way could have "untapped pharmacological potential" and says some plants could even be used in the treatment of some cancers.
Since graduating university, Mr Styles has set up a conservation programme for rare plant species called North West Rare Plant Initiative, which aims to regionally cultivate and reintroduce species of plants that are on the brink of extinction.