Indigenous plant and animals are few in Easter Island. At the time of European arrival, the toromiro tree was the only wild tree and the Carolina wolfberry the only wild shrub, the vegetation being ..(31).. herbaceous. The toromiro tree was overexploited by the island wood carvers, and the last local specimen died in the 1950s ..(32).., the species was saved from extinction. The Norwegian Archaeological Expedition collected seeds and planted them in the Gothenburg Botanical Garden, and saplings from the garden were reintroduced to Easter Island in 1988. Today only 31 wild flowering plants, 14 ferns, and 14 mosses are reported. Grass and small ferns dominate the barren landscape, ..(33).. the boggy crater lakes are thickly covered by two imported American species, the totora reed and Polygonum acumination. A number of cultivated species of plant were also introduced partly from America and partly from Polynesia before the arrival of Europeans; of these the …(34).. species was the sweet potato, which was the cultivated in extensive plantations and formed the staple diet. Bottle gourds, sugarcane, bananas, taro, yams, and two trees. (i.e., the Asiatic paper mulberry and the American Triumfetta semitriloba) were of aboriginal importation, as also probably were the husk tomato, small variety of pineapple, and the coconut.
31. ...