Afrothismia ugandensis

Only two collections of this species are known, each comprising a single individual, made nearly 60 years apart (August 1940, W. Eggeling #4041, and June 1998, S.M. Maishanu in ATBP [African Tropical Biodiversity Programme] #653). The earliest collection has no indication of where within the forest it was collected, while the second has geographical coordinates and detailed notes. It cannot be ruled out that the species is only known at the single, precisely recorded site, as many other species of the genus are known from a single collection at single sites within larger forest areas (Cheek et al. 2024). This known locality is probably one of the most sampled sites for botany in Budongo since it is only 2.45 km from the field station and along a trail. Although the plants are small, and the flower held at ground level, they are not completely inconspicuous due to the yellow and purple flower colour. At the time of the 1998 collection, a co-collector searched without success for further individuals of the Afrothismia, walking c. 200 m in each direction searching in the dense herbaceous vegetation along the forest trail (R. Gereau pers. comm. 2024). Some effort has since been made to find more material including a recent fieldwork expedition to Budongo Central Forest Reserve by a team of four botanists from Makerere University and two experienced field station para-botanists, under the Tropical Important Plant Areas: Uganda project (https://www.kew.org/science/our-science/projects/tropical-important-plant-areas-uganda). They conducted surveys of the forest in mid-October 2023, a wet part of the year ideal for finding Afrothismia in flower, and searched for IPA trigger species, including the Afrothismia. The survey covered the area surrounding the Field Station within the Nyakafunjo (N3) compartment where the 1998 collection was made, which is part of the Strict Nature Reserve (SNR), and extended to cover areas beyond the SNR up to c. 3.5 km from the station. These surveys lasted four days, but did not yield any sign of the Afrothismia (J. Kalema pers. obs.; Cheek et al. 2024). The few collections, and only two individuals recorded to date, therefore suggest that the species is genuinely highly range restricted and rare (Cheek et al. 2024), and the total population is estimated to be well below 50 mature individuals. The current population trend is unknown.