Arahara (Phylloxylon xiphoclada (Baker) Du Puy, Labat &Schrire)

Mohamed bin Zayed Species project number 12053781

The Missouri Botanical Garden (MBG) was founded in 1859 by Henry Shaw (1800-1889), has developed the world's largest botanical database, TROPICOS (accessible at http://www.mobot.org). The MBG has had an active program in Madagascar for three decades, focusing for most of this period on taxonomic research and in-country capacity building. However, during the last ten years, partly as a result of an increased awareness stimulated by several projects aimed at informed conservation (e.g., our “Red List for Species in Madagascar’s Endemic Plant Families initiatives), the staff of the MBG Madagascar Program have become increasingly concerned that plant conservation efforts in Madagascar are very far from adequate. With the mission “To discover, understand, and conserve the plants of Madagascar, in order to sustain and enrich life”, MBG had an urgent obligation to help rectify this situation and identified actions to improve the conservation status of the Malagasy flora: 1) analysis of botanical information to assist in conservation planning and decision-making; 2) improved advocacy for the conservation of Malagasy plants; 3) species-focused conservation of plants on the very brink of extinction; and 4) catalysis of conservation at priority areas for plant conservation that we have identified as likely