Extinct Plants

To the list of recently extinct & lost plants

An often overlooked extinction crisis

When people talk about extinction, many first think of animals: the dodo, the thylacine, or the passenger pigeon. Individual extinct plant species, by contrast, are barely known to most people. Yet plants, too, have been disappearing for centuries because of habitat loss, invasive species, overuse, and climate change.

This imbalance is also described as plant blindness or plant awareness disparity: plants are often perceived less consciously than animals. To many people, they seem more like a “green backdrop” than independent living organisms with complex ways of life and central ecological importance. As a result, their decline also receives less attention—in the public sphere, in the media, and partly also in conservation priorities.

As with many animal species, extinction is often difficult to determine clearly in plants. Especially for inconspicuous species, rarely collected species, or species with very small ranges, there is a broad gray area between “still present” and “extinct.” Some plants were always rare, growing only on a single island, on one mountain slope, or in a specific wetland. Others are known only from a single herbarium specimen or have not been documented for decades—sometimes even centuries.

In addition, some plants can persist as seeds in the soil or be clearly identified only in certain seasons. Many species are therefore initially considered lost, possibly extinct, before their actual status can be clarified. There are also species that no longer grow in the wild but still survive in botanical gardens, seed banks, or other conservation collections.

Extinct plants: Islands as hotspots

Many of the plant species now considered extinct or lost were island endemics. In other words, they occurred only on a single island or island group. This narrow geographic restriction makes them extremely vulnerable. If a species grows only on one particular mountain slope or in just one valley, even a small change can be enough to threaten its entire population.

Island ecosystems often developed in isolation over long periods. Many plants there were adapted to very specific site conditions: particular elevations, cloud forests, volcanic soils, moist ravines, dry forests, or open coastal areas. At the same time, many islands originally lacked large herbivores or highly competitive species. With the arrival of humans, that changed: forests were cleared, areas were grazed, settlements were built, and alien animals and plants were introduced. For island species, this often meant that their entire habitat disappeared or changed drastically within a short time.

One example is the Rapa Nui palm (Paschalococos disperta) of Easter Island. The island was once covered over large areas by palm forests, but between about 1200 and 1650 these forests gradually disappeared. In addition to human use, the introduced Pacific rat (Rattus exulans) apparently played a decisive role: it ate the large, nutrient-rich palm seeds and thus prevented natural regeneration of the populations for generations. Humans also removed mature trees through clearing, fire, and timber use. In the end, an entire endemic tree species disappeared forever.

This pattern can also be seen on Hawaii or St. Helena. There, small natural ranges, high rates of endemism—in both plants and animals—and human interventions came together. Feral goats, pigs, rabbits, or rats ate young plants, destroyed vegetation, or prevented natural regeneration. Invasive grasses and shrubs displaced native plants, altered fire regimes, or deprived rare species of light, space, and nutrients. If a plant species already consisted of only a few individuals, such a combination of habitat loss, grazing pressure, and competition could quickly lead to its final disappearance.

The Azores provide a clear example of how islands are among the most threatened regions of global plant diversity. A study on the archipelago’s endemic vascular flora, published in Scientific Reports in 2026, shows that a substantial proportion of this flora is under threat. The researchers assessed 94 plant species and subspecies found exclusively in the Azores according to the criteria of the IUCN Red List. Twelve taxa could not be conclusively classified because of uncertain data; of the remaining 82 assessable taxa, 60.9% are considered threatened. 35 taxa alone were classified as Endangered, while a further eight were classified as Critically Endangered. The study also declared two taxa extinct: Vicia dennesiana from the island of São Miguel, an endemic vetch that disappeared from cultivation as early as the 19th century, and Armeria maritima azorica, last recorded on São Jorge in 1974. The researchers emphasise that these documented extinctions probably represent only part of the actual losses. Many plants may already have disappeared before they were scientifically described or systematically recorded.

Plants on continents are not necessarily less threatened, but on islands extinction often becomes visible more quickly because distribution ranges are smaller and ecological relationships are more narrowly confined. When the last site disappears there, it is not merely a local population that vanishes, but the entire species.

The main causes of plant extinction

The most important cause of the disappearance of plant species is the loss and alteration of their habitats. Forests are cleared, wetlands drained, coasts built over, grasslands converted into farmland, and mountain slopes opened up by roads, mining, and tourism. For rare plants or plants with small ranges, the loss of even a few sites can be existential.

Invasive species also play another central role. Introduced animals can damage young plants, seeds, or entire vegetation stands; invasive plants compete with native species for light, water, and nutrients. Especially on islands, where species evolved without such competition or herbivores, these changes can have devastating consequences.

There is also direct overuse. Valuable timber species, medicinal plants, orchids, succulents, cycads, and striking ornamental plants have been and continue to be taken from the wild. Slow-growing species can often barely compensate for such losses, especially if they produce only a few seeds or depend on specific pollinators.

Climate change intensifies many of these pressures. Higher temperatures, altered rainfall, droughts, storms, and rising sea levels change the sites to which plants are adapted. High-mountain plants, coastal species, cloud-forest plants, island endemics, and species with very small ranges and hardly any escape options are at risk. One example is the Key Largo tree cactus (Pilosocereus millspaughii) in Florida: its local disappearance is linked to sea-level rise, storm surges, and increasing coastal erosion.

As a rule, a species does not go extinct because of a single factor, but because of a combination of several pressures: habitats become smaller, invasive species spread, pollinators disappear, the climate changes, and the last populations lose genetic diversity. In this way, plant species can disappear long before their decline is noticed by the public.

Extinct plants: Data & facts (as of 05/2026)

The IUCN Red List documents plant species worldwide that are officially considered extinct (EX) or extinct in the wild (EW). It currently lists 141 plant species and 11 subspecies or varieties as globally extinct. However, these figures show only the documented part of the problem. In reality, the number of disappeared plant species is likely higher, because many species were never comprehensively studied, are known from only a few herbarium specimens, or disappeared before their threat status was ever assessed.

In North America, the IUCN records the most officially extinct plants: 48 species and 10 subspecies. A large share of these are from the Hawaiian Islands: 46 of these taxa were endemic there, meaning they naturally occurred only on this archipelago. They include bellflower relatives such as Cyanea dolichopoda or Cyanea pohaku.

Numerous plants have also disappeared in sub-Saharan Africa. There, 27 plant taxa are considered extinct. From the island of St. Helena alone come 5 officially eradicated species, including the St. Helena olive (Nesiota elliptica) and St. Helena ebony (Melhania melanoxylon). In Oceania, 24 plant taxa are listed as extinct. These include 4 species from Australia and 6 species each from New Zealand, New Caledonia, and French Polynesia. From the Caribbean, 15 extinct plant taxa are known, including 11 from Cuba alone.

In Europe, 9 plant taxa are considered officially extinct, although this figure needs to be viewed with nuance: 1 species, Ornithogalum visianicum, was rediscovered in Croatia in 2016; another, Astragalus nitidiflorus, was found again in Spain as early as 2003; 2 other still-listed species have since been synonymized with species that still exist. Still considered extinct are the Cry violet (Viola cryana) from France, the moss Nobregaea latinervis and the moss Fissidens microstictus from Madeira, as well as the knapweed Centaurea tuntasia and the umbellifer Geocaryum divaricatum from Greece.

The category Extinct in the Wild currently includes 47 plant species and 1 subspecies, among them the Franklin tree (Franklinia alatamaha) from the U.S. state of Georgia. It has not been documented in the wild since the early 19th century. Today it exists only in cultivation; all known plants trace back to seeds and seedlings collected in the 18th century. Wood’s cycad (Encephalartos woodii) from South Africa is also found only in botanical gardens. All surviving plants descend from a single male wild specimen discovered at the end of the 19th century. Since no female plant has been found to this day, natural sexual reproduction is not possible. The species therefore still survives as a living plant, but in ecological and evolutionary terms it has reached a critical endpoint.

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