Kauaʻi record · kba_plant_lysimachia_barcae
Lysimachia barcae
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About Lysimachia barcae
Lysimachia barcae is a Critically Endangered shrub found nowhere outside Kauaʻi. Field conservationist Nicolai Barca discovered the species, and Kenneth Wood and Warren Wagner named it in his honor in 2025.
Kauaʻi evidence
Species description, diagnostic traits, naming, known population, and recommended IUCN category are documented in a 2025 peer-reviewed taxonomic treatment; the accepted name was cross-checked in POWO and IPNI.
Names and classification
- Scientific name
- Lysimachia barcae
- Family
- Primulaceae
- Order
- Ericales
- Record type
- Species or taxonomic group
Kauaʻi occurrence and status
- Kauaʻi occurrence
- Single-island endemic; one known wild colony
- Origin
- Kauaʻi endemic
- Conservation status
- Critically Endangered (CR), author assessment
- Evidence date
- 2026-09-27
- Evidence limits
- The known wild population is extremely small and remote; public location wording is intentionally generalized.
Habitat and ecology
- Habitats
- Wet montane forest · Steep ridge and cliff habitat
- Food and resource needs
- Rainfall, cloud moisture, light gaps, nutrients, and intact forest soil and substrate
- Reproduction
- Successful flowering, pollination, viable seed or cuttings, and protected establishment sites; ex situ propagation is underway
- Shelter
- Stable vegetated ridge and cliff habitat with low disturbance
- Growth form
- Shrub
Threats and conservation
- Threats
- Only ten mature individuals reported from one colony · Feral pigs and other ungulate disturbance · Invasive plants · Landslide and storm damage · Climate change and stochastic loss
- Conservation actions
- Maintain protective fencing and ungulate exclusion · Monitor all known wild plants without publicizing precise coordinates · Control invasive plants near the population · Continue seed and cutting collection, propagation, and safeguarded cultivation
- Monitoring
- Repeat demographic, flowering, fruiting, recruitment, and threat monitoring by authorized rare-plant teams
- Data gaps
- No established common or Hawaiian name was found in the reviewed sources · Pollination biology and long-term population trend remain poorly known
Process and seasonal context
- Seasonal timing
- Flowering and fruiting observed during January 2016 and May 2025 field visits
- Seasonal description
- Lysimachia barcae is a Critically Endangered shrub found nowhere outside Kauaʻi. Field conservationist Nicolai Barca discovered the species, and Kenneth Wood and Warren Wagner named it in his honor in 2025.