Author: Zoe Goodwin

Tropical botanist at RBGE
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2926-1645

Four people look at the leaves on the branch of a tree.

Worst-ever fire season shows the urgency of training in plant identification skills

Orange sunlight filtered through the pall of smoke from nearby fires and leaves of the Guanacaste tree as students examined the tree in front of them. It might…

Mercedes Chanek – a hidden Indigenous plant collector from Belize

Surprising is the only word. The list of important female plant collectors from Belize is pretty short. So, when someone emailed out of the blue, about an Indigenous…

A view across Marañon valley near Ucuncha in Peru. In the foreground are pale-leaved shrubs of Croton. In the background a wide brown river and towering mountains. Photograph taken by Zoë Goodwin.

A new species of shrub discovered in the dry Andean valleys of Peru and Ecuador

In the deep, isolated valleys of the Andes there are still many plants that have never been described by science. These valleys are hot and dry, despite the…

Rare plants and rare skills

The graceful and slender silver palmetto, Schippia concolor, is a rare palm found only in the forests and savannas of central and southern Belize that is considered to…

Increasing knowledge of Apocynaceae in the seasonally dry tropical forests of the Marañón

In the tropics, there is an important but undervalued ecosystem – Seasonally Dry Tropical Forest (SDTF). The extremely dry climate found in the SDTF results in plants with…

Learning on the job: students make valuable scientific discoveries

“Hey Zoë, we’ve found a Pinguicula!” “I doubt it, they don’t grow in Belize.” “Well, this is definitely a Pinguicula.” With that conversation shouted across a hillside, we…

Hot, steep and spiny – Exploring the forgotten forests of Latin America

Working in the dry forests of the Marañón valley in Peru can be pretty intense. Firstly, as you might expect, it can get exceptionally hot. While clouds might…