Rare Australian shrub missing since 1967 rediscovered in Queensland

A rare Australian shrub that had been missing from scientific records for nearly 60 years has been found alive in remote Queensland. Ptilotus senarius, known from only two historical collections, was rediscovered in 2025 after horticulturalist and bird bander Aaron Bean photographed several plants and uploaded the images to the citizen-science platform iNaturalist.

The photographs were recognised by Queensland Herbarium botanist Anthony R. Bean, who had described the species himself in 2014. Researchers recorded 15 individual plants within a 15-metre area on private property. The discovery is documented in a 2026 paper in the Australian Journal of Botany, which highlights how citizen science can locate species that conventional surveys miss. The exact location has been withheld to protect the population.