WWF to auction naming opportunity for newly discovered flower
Howard Lake | 1 June 2015 | News
WWF South Africa is offering the unusual opportunity to name a newly discovered species of flower in a fundraising auction. All proceeds from the auction will go to support the organisation’s conservation work in East and South Africa.
Usually the honour of choosing a name for a newly discovered species goes to one or more of those scientists who discovered it.
[youtube height=”450″ width=”800″]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOUWfhMcK-8[/youtube]
WWF South Africa hopes the rare opportunity will appeal to gardeners, amateur botanists and those with an interest in plant conservation. The highest bidder will be able to choose to name the flower after themselves, a friend or a loved one. They will also receive the original botanical painting of the flower by South African botanical artist Lisa Strachan.
The new flower was discovered in the Cederberg Mountains in South Africa, and has conspicuous star-shaped flowers. It belongs to the Ixia genus, a group of plants that has been sought after by collectors and cultivators in Europe since the mid-1700’s.
The WWF new flower auction auction is by invitation only and will take place at the Linnaean Society in London on 24 June 2015.
• Plenty of charities have raised funds when authors auction the chance to name a character in their next novel, including Ian Rankin, Sir Anthony Horowitz, and 69 authors supporting CLIC Sargent.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.