The plant, Hibiscadelphus woodii, was formally discovered in 1991 and had been declared extinct in 2016:
In 2016, the same year the plant was listed extinct, the National Tropical Botanical Garden teamed up with drone operator Ben Nyberg to supplement the work of intrepid scientists like Wood, who rappel down cliffs and trudge through rainforests to conserve plants. In January, National Geographic reports, Nyberg saw what looked like a Hibiscadelphus woodii plant while surveying via drone… The following month, Nyberg and Wood hiked 700 feet into the valley, according to Quartz. Unable to go further, they flew a drone 800 feet deeper into the ravine. The image the drone transmitted back to their portable monitor confirmed their hopes: living Hibiscadelphus woodii plants.Eleanor Cummins, “Say ‘aloha!’ to this not-actually-extinct Hawaiian flower” at Popular Science
A note of hope for Earth Day: The drone can survey places that are a bit risky for a wildlife biologist.
Drone survey showing the flower:
Apparently, a “Juliet” has also been found for lone water frog, Romeo, once believed to be the last of his kind.
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See also: Move Over, Bee! Tortoise, Feared Extinct, Turns Up Again
Alfred Russel Wallace’s Giant Bee Turns Out Not To Be Extinct
Assumed extinct, tree kangaroo reappears
Extinction (or maybe not): New Scientist offers five “Lazarus species”
and
Is There A Fixed Time Limit For Recovery After Mass Extinctions? The apparently fixed rate of change implies a more regulated system than the random developments that we are used to associating with evolution.