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Kew's Chelsea Flower Show Stand 2005
Hazard alert!
Only one cafe marron plant survives in the wild
On its home island of Rodrigues in the Indian Ocean, café marron was thought to be extinct in the wild until a single surviving tree was spotted by a vigilant local schoolboy in 1980.
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| Carlos Magdalena, a student from Kew’s Diploma in Horticulture course, prepares to hand-pollinate a café marron flower |
Safety briefing
Horticultural staff at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew managed to root cuttings from the sole surviving tree in 1986.
Several generations of cuttings now thrive in Kew’s glasshouses and some have been returned to Rodrigues.
Although café marron regularly flowers at Kew, it never set seed until Kew’s horticulturists made a major breakthrough when they discovered how to pollinate the flowers. In 2003 the café marron bore its first fruit with viable seeds. The seedlings are now thriving in Kew’s nursery.
Seed production unlocks some of the genetic variability within the species, improving its ability to adapt to environmental changes and other threats. This makes re-introduction a possibility.
Find out more about café marron