Rare plant found after 61 years on Samos

A rare species of Greek flora, called Consolida samia, was found 61 years later in the western part of Samos by a research group of the Department of Biology of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (EKPA).

On May 27, 2023, researchers discovered a remarkable population of the plant Consolida samia in the southwestern foothills of Kerka in western Samos, at about the same place where it was first discovered (05/26/1962) by the Swedish botanist Sven Snogerup.

Consolida samia is a small annual plant (therophyte), native to Samos, found in a unique population in a limited area on Mount Kerkis. He was rated as one of the 50 rare plants of the Mediterranean and is one of the 26 priority plants covered by the “Directive 92/43/EEC (Habitat Directive) for the protection and conservation of natural habitats and wild fauna and flora”.

It is worth emphasizing that until now we have known this plant only from five dried samples collected by Snogerup and stored in the Botanical Museums of Lund and Edinburgh.

The discovery is made in the framework of the research program of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (Department of Botany and Biology) entitled “In search of the extinct Consolida samia – the study of the depths of Mount Kerketei (Samos, Greece)”, (“Αναζητώντας την εξαφανισμένη ηση στις σάρες του Όρους Κερκετεύς (Σάμος, Ελλάδα), with the financial support of Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund and the leadership of scientific adviser Professor Kostas Thanos.