“This is certainly the loneliest organism in the world,” wrote paleontologist Richard Fortey in his book on the evolution of life.
He was talking about it Encephalartos woodii (E. woodii), a plant from South Africa. E. woodii is a member of the cycad family, heavy plants with thick trunks and large stiff leaves that form a majestic crown. These resilient survivors have survived the dinosaurs and multiple mass extinctions. Once widespread, today they are one of the most endangered species in the world.
The only known game E. woodii was discovered in 1895 by botanist John Medley Wood while on a botanical expedition in the Ngoye Forest in South Africa. He searched the area for others, but no one was found. Over the next decades, botanists removed stems and stolons and grew them in gardens.
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Fearing that the last tribe would be destroyed, the Department of Forestry removed it from the wild in 1916 and kept it in a protective enclosure in Pretoria, South Africa, causing it to become extinct in the wild. The plant has since been propagated worldwide. however, the E. woodii is facing an existential crisis. All plants are clones of the Ngoye specimen. They are all males and without a female natural reproduction is impossible. E. woodiis The story is one of both survival and loneliness.
My team’s research is inspired by the dilemma of the lonely plant and the possibility that there is still a female out there. Our research involves the use of remote sensing technologies and artificial intelligence to assist in our search for a woman in the Ngoye Forest.
The evolutionary journey of cycads
Cycads are the oldest extant plant groups alive today and are often called ‘living fossils’ or ‘dinosaur plants’ due to their evolutionary history dating back to the Carboniferous period, about 300 million years ago. During the Mesozoic Era (250-66 million years ago), also known as the Age of Cycads, these plants were ubiquitous and thrived in the warm, humid climates that characterized this period.
Although they resemble ferns or palms, cycads are not related to either. Cycads are gymnosperms, a group that includes conifers and ginkgos. Unlike flowering plants (angiosperms), cycads reproduce with the help of cones. It is impossible to tell males and females apart until they mature and produce their beautiful cones.
Female cones are generally wide and round, while male cones appear elongated and narrower. The male cones produce pollen, which is carried to the female cones by insects (beetles). This ancient method of reproduction has remained largely unchanged for millions of years.
Despite their long lifespans, cycads are today ranked as the most endangered living organisms on Earth, with the majority of species considered to be in danger of extinction. This is due to their slow growth and reproduction cycles, which typically take ten to twenty years to reach maturity, and habitat loss due to deforestation, grazing and overfishing. Cycads have become symbols of botanical rarity.
Their striking appearance and ancient lineage make them popular in exotic floriculture, which has led to illegal trade. Rare cycads can fetch exorbitant prices from US$620 (£495) per cm, with some specimens selling for millions of pounds each. Poaching cycads is a threat to their survival.
One of the most valuable species is the E. woodii. It is protected in botanical gardens with security measures such as alarmed cages designed to deter poachers.
AI in the air
In our search for a female E. woodii we used innovative technologies to explore parts of the forest from a vertical vantage point. In 2022 and 2024, our drone surveys covered an area of 195 hectares or 148 football fields, creating detailed maps from thousands of photos taken by the drones. It is still a small part of the Ngoye Forest, covering 10,000 hectares.
Our AI system improved the efficiency and accuracy of these searches. If E. woodii is considered extinct in the wild, synthetic images were used in the training of the AI model to improve, through an image recognition algorithm, its ability to recognize cycads by shape in different ecological contexts.
Plant species are disappearing at an alarming rate worldwide. Since all existing E. woodii specimens are clones, their potential for genetic diversity in the face of environmental change and disease is limited.
Notable examples include the Great Famine in 1840s Ireland, where the uniformity of cloned potatoes exacerbated the crisis, and the vulnerability of clonal Cavendish bananas to Panama disease, which threatens their production, as with the Gros Michel banana in the 1950s.
Finding a wife would mean E. woodii is no longer on the brink of extinction and could revive the species. A female would enable sexual reproduction, bring in genetic diversity and represent a breakthrough in conservation efforts.
E. woodii is a sobering reminder of the fragility of life on Earth. But our quest to discover a female E. woodii shows that there is hope for even the most endangered species if we act quickly enough.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Laura Cinti does not work for, consult with, own shares in, or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.