In July 2023, botanist Andrea Bianchi was driving in the Nguru Mountains of eastern Tanzania when the broad pods on a tree growing in a maize field near the road caught his eye. He pulled over and found not one but two Millettia sacleuxii trees, a species scientists had feared was extinct. Thousands of their seeds have since been collected and germinated so that they can be planted as part of a reforestation project. M. sacleuxii is so rare the tree doesn’t have a common name in English. The local Kihehe language has only a generic name for it and other closely related forest Millettia species found in this region: muhafu. Scientists previously knew the rare species from just three forest reserves in the Nguru and Usambara mountains. But two of the reserves were cleared decades ago and replaced with exotic timber and sugar plantations. The remaining reserve, near the town of Turiani, has been reduced to around 49 hectares (121 acres) surrounded by encroaching fields of rice and sugar. “I was really worried about this species and fearing it may have gone extinct,” said Bianchi, the tropical forest restoration expert who spotted the surviving trees near the Mvaji River, not far from Turiani. Somehow they had survived being cut down for poles or firewood, or to make way for crops like most of the forest that once surrounded them. One was shaded by a large fig, the other, 50 meters (160 feet) away, was crowded around by shrubs and…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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