The Keelung City Government and the Wild Bird Society of Keelung are aiming to restore the Lysimachia candida, a species thought to be extinct since the early 1900s, at an ecological pool near Keelung’s Nuannuan District (暖暖).
The last time the plant was officially recorded was in 1897 by Japanese naturalist Seikihiro Yano.
Considered extinct by the Red List of Vascular Plants of Taiwan report, the plant was last month discovered by a plant enthusiast surnamed Su (蘇).
Photo provided by the Wild Bird Society of Keelung
Su said that she found the plant growing on a grassy slope, and sent a photograph to other enthusiasts because she had never seen it before.
Chung Shih-wen (鐘詩文), an expert at the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute, and Yang Tsung-yu (楊宗愈), a researcher at the National Museum of Natural Science, visited the ecological pool and identified the plant as Lysimachia candida.
The plant has flourished, with three to four clusters within a range of 100m, the experts said, adding that they surmised the clusters have been growing for about three to five years.
Society director Shen Chin-feng (沈錦豐) on Friday said that the city government should be credited for the rediscovery of the plant, as it had used lawn mowers and not herbicides to maintain the grass near the ecological pool.
The plant is facing the sun and is not covered by trees, meaning that given time, its survival is almost guaranteed, Shen said.
The society would be keeping the plant’s location a secret for now, Shen said, urging others who know about the discovery to also keep quiet to increase the chances that the plant will survive.
Shen also called on plant enthusiasts not to remove the plant from its habitat and to allow it to flourish and grow.
The plant usually develops fruit between March and July, the city government said, adding that it had agreed to collaborate with the society.
The society would be tasked with collecting the seeds of the plant while the city government would nurture the plants, it said.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
ENERGY RESILIENCE: Although Alaska is open for investments, Taiwan is sourcing its gas from the Middle East, and the sea routes carry risks, Ho Cheng-hui said US government officials’ high-profile reception of a Taiwanese representative at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference indicated the emergence of an Indo-Pacific energy resilience alliance, an academic said. Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) attended the conference in Alaska on Thursday last week at the invitation of the US government. Pan visited oil and gas facilities with senior US officials, including US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and US Senator Daniel Sullivan. Pan attending the conference on behalf of President William Lai (賴清德) shows a significant elevation in diplomatic representation,
The Taipei MRT is to begin accepting mobile payment services in the fall, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said on Saturday. When the company finishes the installation of new payment units at ticketing gates in October, MRT passengers can use credit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay, the operator said. In addition, the MRT would also provide QR payment codes — which would be compatible with Line Pay, Jkopay, iPass Money, PXPay Plus, EasyWallet, iCash Pay, Taiwan Pay and Taishin Pay — to access the railway system. Currently, passengers can access the Taipei MRT by buying a single-journey token or using EasyCard,
RSS