MICHEWENI, Tanzania — Botanists have found a stand of rare trees in Tanzania’s Zanzibar archipelago not known to grow wild anywhere else in Africa. The intsia trees (Intsia bijuga) were found growing within moist coastal forest in the north of Ngezi Forest Reserve on the island of Pemba. Worryingly, the area is earmarked for the first phase of a new “eco-resort.” Earthmoving equipment and tipper trucks are already stationed near the forest, Mongabay witnessed. “It is the only place in Africa where Intsia dominates a forest formation,” says Andrea Bianchi, a consultant tropical botanist. He, fellow botanist Simone Orsenigo and plant taxonomist Giacomo Baldesi from the University of Pavia, Italy, conducted plant surveys throughout Ngezi in early December. The trio found 80 plants never before recorded in Pemba. “This coastal forest is really interesting, it’s super-rich [in plant species],” Bianchi says. Some of the plants are potentially new to science, including a tiny white ground orchid found by Orsenigo that stands a few centimeters above the forest floor. The orchids are thought to be a species of Disporis, a genus also known from the Eastern Arc Mountains on the Tanzanian mainland. “It may be a montane species that evolved into something unique,” Bianchi says. “It’s very much restricted to this little patch of forest.” A Dec. 2024 botanical survey of the Ngezi reserve found 80 plant species never before recorded. Some may even be new to science, including this ground orchid found growing in a patch of moist coastal forest…This article was originally published on Mongabay