During January 2007 the Auckland Botanical Society visited the Chatham Islands. During their visit the late Dr Ross Beever, then a mycologist working for Landcare Research discovered a strange, orange rust growing on cultivated plants of Chatham Islands forget-me-not (Myosotidium hortensia) within the visitor car park gardens, Department of Conservation offices, Te One, Chatham Islands

Last year the Chatham Islands lost one of its unique genera. The endemic Chatham Islands sow thistle was originally described by New Zealand botanist Thomas Kirk (1828–1898) as a new species of Sonchus, S. grandifolius (Kirk 1894). Then in 1965 botanist Loufty Boulos transferred S. grandifolius and the Australian endemic S. megalocarpus to a new genus Embergeria (Eichler 1965). Later Nicholas Lander (Lander 1976) transferred the Australian Embergeria megalocarpus to another new endemic Australian genus Actites leaving the Chatham Islands E. grandifolius the sole representative of the genus Embergeria, which by default was now a Chatham Islands endemic.

The May 2012 threat assessment of the New Zealand Indigenous Vascular Plant flora is now published (see de Lange et al. 2013). The list which covers the entire indigenous vascular plant flora, including that of the Chatham Islands and 166 informally recognised, ‘tag name’ entities is now available at http://www.doc.govt.nz/upload/documents/science-and-technical/nztcs3entire.pdf  […]

As progress toward the preparation of a Chatham Islands Flora continues, the number of endemic vascular plants accepted for the Chatham Islands has now increased from 38 to 42 with the formal recognition of three new scurvy grasses and one new hook sedge (oft known as bastard grass) from the islands.