Top 13 species discovered in 2018

A showy slipper orchid was discovered on the black market in Laos. Paphiopedilum papilio-laoticus is just one of many new species threated by international demand for illegally collected native plants. 

By identifying and registering plants on the Red List, Kew is battling illegal trade. We also work on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

Four new species from the largest plant family, Orchidaceae, were also discovered, including Bulbophyllum adolinae in New Guinea.

The local Indonesian bank, Bank Negara Indonesia, will celebrate with an image of the orchid on their new bank cards.

Found in a waterfall in Sewa River rapids, Sierra Leone, the Lebbiea grandiflora  was immediately classified as 'Critically Endangered' due to threats from mining and a local hydro-electric project.

It's possible that this new genus will be extinct in the next two years. Kew's botanists plan to travel to other locations, like Guinea, to search for the plant in the wild and collect seeds to bank in the Millennium Seed Bank.

The festive and tasty Allspice genus welcomed a new species, Pimenta berciliae. The new tree can be found only on northern mountains of Hispaniola, in the Caribbean

It's part of the incredibly diverse Myrtaceae family, giving more fruit biomass to birds and mammals than any other family. 

Heavy rainfall revealed the rare Ipomoea prolifera after the water caused the plants to burst into flower!

Found in Bolivia, it joins a long list of rare and endemic species in the inter-Andean valley region. 

Another Ipomoea genus was found on an extremely steep-sided Andean slope in Bolivia, covered by a moist cloud forest. 

Impomoea inaccessa is a vigorous flowering vine, climbing at least 15 metres over forest trees. It was only reachable when trees had fallen down besides landslides. 

A new fungus, Hydnum melitosarx (Cantharellales) is one of 22 new species of Hydnum - a.k.a. 'hedgehog mushrooms.'

Many of these mushrooms are thought to be edible, and get their nickname because their spores are borne on 'teeth' rather than gills.

The 'Vulnerable' Dioscorea hurteri was discovered via a photograph sent to a Kew scientist 15 years ago.

It was only in 2018 that the team matched the photo to specimens in Kew's herbarium and could describe the species.

A climbing yam, this new discovery belongs to the crop that feeds millions of people around the world; a plant with huge medicinal value (the first birth control pills were derived from yams). Who knows what other medicinal properties lay inside...

The Kindia gangan was seen growing on high sandstone cliffs in Guinea. This year, Kew scientist Melanie-Jayne Howes found the white, bell-shaped flowers have a bright orange pollen that contains over 40 different triterpenoids, a chemical that is known for having anti-cancer properties.

This plant might be a life saver. DNA studies reveal that is both a new species and a new genus to science, so conservation action is vital. 

A climbing plant that traps and digest insects in its pitchers, the Nepenthes biak now lives behind-the-scenes in Kew's Tropical Nursery. 

Unique to Biak island off the coast of Indonesian New Guinea, the plant lives in trees and mainly traps cockroaches. 

The beautiful orange Oreocharis tribracteata was found in northern Vietnam in 2014.

It wasn't until it flowered in the UK that botanists found it was actually a new species, with three (rather than two) bracts in the inflorescence, combined with it's colour and heart-shaped leaves. 

A giant 24 metre rainforest tree was discovered in coastal Guinea. 

Talbotiella cheekii is a huge canopy rainforest tree, whose trunk reaches 83cm in diameter, with shocking pink flowers and explosive seed pods. Worryingly, the tree is under threat from rainforest clearance.