Galápagos Habitat Restoration Institute
Field notes · 22 October 2026
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The news
The story
1982
By the 1970s the species is close to extinction, and the Conservatoire’s founder, Jean-Yves Lesouëf, sets out to collect its seeds. In 1982 seeds are gathered from the last two plants known in the wild, on the Plaine Champagne, and stored in Brest.
1990
The species is declared extinct in the wild. Its future now sits in Brest, in seeds stored at −18 °C.
The seed bank
The seeds are safe in the bank, but they cannot germinate on their own. Seed alone will not bring the species back.
1993
With INRA’s laboratory at Ploudaniel, the Conservatoire turns to biotechnology: embryos about a millimetre long are cut from the seeds under sterile conditions and grown on a nutrient medium. Whole plants are regenerated, a world first for conservation in the Conservatoire’s words. The published account gives the odds: three seedlings from 74 seeds.
Three founders
Those seedlings became the three clones from which Brest’s collection was grown. Genetic fingerprinting later found no variation among the plants, and in cultivation they set no viable seed. From then on, the species depends on a few clonal lines kept alive, and on in vitro techniques.
2001
Two plants from one of the clones go to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in London, under an exchange programme. Kew becomes Brest’s partner in the work on the genus.
2009
Cuttings root poorly, and there are too few plants and no viable seed. The Conservatoire turns to the Vegenov laboratory to multiply the plants by in vitro micropropagation: from 2009, hundreds are produced.
2016
With Kew’s team, Stéphane Buord co-authors a conservation road map for Cylindrocline (Acta Physiologiae Plantarum, 2016). It sets out a standard in vitro protocol started from the dormant buds of mature plants, and reports how its plants fared.
2021
In Mauritius, with the National Parks and Conservation Service, plots are fenced against unwanted animals and cleared of every invasive plant: Conservation Management Areas. About thirty plants are acclimatised there.
2024
The Conservatoire announces the return of about a hundred plants born in Brest to these plots, under a precise protocol, nearly 35 years after the species vanished from the wild.
Thirty years, in six moves
The scientist
Why it matters for Galápagos
Seeds from the last two wild plants, 1982
A training set first, so the method exists before the rarest species need it
Embryo rescue, 1993
Embryo rescue, if needed: one of the four areas of Brest’s advice
Three clones, no genetic variation
Clonal lines kept for the long term from a small founder base; tissue culture to bank specific genotypes
Micropropagation with Vegenov, from 2009
Bench work with Invitrolab, our partner laboratory in Quito
Fenced plots cleared of invasive plants, 2021
Removing invasive blackberry from the Santa Cruz highlands: the Institute’s core work
About a hundred plants returned, 2024
Plants for the highlands produced in Galápagos once the protocol exists and is authorised
What Brest will advise on