A tree with just six known wild individuals left is being cloned to help prevent it from disappearing forever.

The Mongarlowe mallee (Eucalyptus recurva), found in southeastern Australia, is one of the world’s rarest eucalypts.

Its largest known individual has a woody underground structure called a lignotuber estimated to be 3,000–6,000 years old.

The six surviving wild individuals are widely separated, making cross-pollination extremely difficult and there are currently no wild seeds available.

Conservationists at the Australian National Botanic Gardens are therefore creating genetic copies by grafting cuttings from the wild trees onto rootstock.

So far, they have successfully produced multiple copies of four of the six wild individuals, creating an “insurance population” outside the wild.

The ultimate goal is to get the plants flowering, carefully pollinate them and produce genetically pure, viable seeds that could eventually help rebuild the population.

The challenge? The species can take up to 20 years to flower.

For now, these tiny nursery-grown trees may be one of the best chances of keeping an ancient species alive.

Science and facts💡