Tulipa subquinquefolia

The primary threat to this species is over collection by local people (Nowak et al. 2020). This threat has already led to significant historical declines especially around the city of Kulob. Although this plant is relatively rare it is still often collected when found in flower mainly because it is a large, very pretty flowering species. This species is also threatened by livestock overgrazing and expansion of agricultural land. These are leading to both a decline in habitat quality as well as mature individuals. This species has a bulb that can grow one metre below the surface and so can survive in arable land that is ploughed to some extent (Everett 2013), but continued habitat loss is damaging subpopulations. Climate change may also affect this species with projections suggesting large areas of suitable tulip habitat could be lost in the future (Wilson et al. 2021), however the direct impact on this species is uncertain.

This species is recognised as Endangered in the Red Book of Tajikistan (Hisoriev et al. 2016). This species is known to occur in the Dashti-Jum Nature Reserve where around 5% of the population of this species is protected. This species is not reported from any ex situ collections on BGCI PlantSearch tool (BGCI 2022), but is thought to be growing in the Kulob Botanic Garden. There is a real need to tackle the over collection of this species which is causing rapid declines.