The National Botanical Garden in Kauai, Hawaii. Photo By Payton Walton – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link
A drone, flown by the National Tropical Botanic Garden, recently rediscovered a Hawaiian flower that was originally believed to be extinct, KITV reports.
Botanist Ken Wood, originally discovered the flower in the 1990s.
The flower known as hibisca delphus woodii, or hau kuahiwi in Hawaiian, was believed to have gone extinct 10 years ago as a result of landslides, falling boulders, and other natural causes.
Attempts at saving the flower colony through cross-pollination and grafting were not met with success, the Star Advertiser reports.
A nonprofit organization, the NTBG aims to care for plant life and is also planning to apply for grants to work on drones with robotic arms that would care for the flowers.
The recent discovery of the flower using the drone was funded by the Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund.
The NTBG looks forward to continuing its work on conserving plant life in the future.Honolulu, Hawaii news, sports & weather – KITV Channel 4
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