| Rare fern find may help cure Alzheimer's
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2004-10-21 James Cook
A long hunt
located a plant thought extinct, writes Stephen Cauchi.
Ashley Field had
been hunting for two years without any luck. But in January, while
tramping through rainforest in pouring rain and waist-deep in water,
he looked up into the rainforest canopy and almost fell over in
amazement. There it was: a blue tassel fern, last seen 26 years ago
and feared extinct. No longer.
"I knew
what it was straight away," he told The Age. "I was
ecstatic. I was wobbly at the knees, we had just about lost heart
when we came across it."
The blue tassel
fern (Huperzia dalhousieana), which could help cure Alzheimer's
patients, was thought to be a victim of rainforest clearing. Mr
Field, a James Cook University PhD student, had made it his mission
to find it.
Mr Field, 22,
was walking with his wife at the time. "We'd just about given up
hope of finding it because the leads that we'd followed until that
date had proved to be other species of tassel ferns," he said.
Mr Field said
there were nine species of tassel ferns in north Queensland, all of
which were threatened, and hundreds throughout the world. But the
blue tassel fern was a favourite among plant enthusiasts. For that
reason, he had kept quiet about the discovery in case others found
the site and removed them.
"It is an
iconic species for plant enthusiasts in north Queensland . . . many
people know about it, it's quite famous," he said. "But
very few people have seen it either in the wild or in cultivation...
part of the reason is that it is quite distinct and a much larger
plant than some of the other tassel ferns, which are already grown as
ornamental plants." He said the fern had not been recorded for a
quarter of a century.
"Having
said that, there are people who probably knew where it was in that
time but had the foresight to keep its whereabouts a secret."
He said that in
China, other tassel fern species were cultivated to extract the
compound huperzine, which is used to treat Alzheimer's disease.
Pharmaceutical companies had contacted him about producing the drug
from Queensland tassel ferns. "There's potential that all of
them could produce huperzine of some sort but it just has not been
investigated," he said.
Mr Field said
cultivating the fern in the wild and possibly in nurseries was the
focus of his research. Its location remains a secret. He said he also
planned to study the DNA of Queensland's tassel ferns to determine
their varieties and links with species overseas.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/10/20/1097951768172.html?from=storylhs#
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