When Dr. David Wilkinson visited Ascension Island in the South Atlantic, he was amazed by its ecosystem. “I remember thinking, this is really weird,” he said. “There were all kinds of plants that don’t belong together in nature, growing side by side.” Charles Darwin had visited Ascension on the return leg of the Beagle’s voyage in 1836. In his diary, he recorded it as an arid, volcanic island. The lush cloud forest Wilkinson found on Ascension Island in 2003 was the result of a collaboration between Darwin and his closest friend, Joseph Dalton Hooker.