New Plant Species: Discovered
Indian botanists and researchers have discovered two new species of plants from two bio-geographic hotspots of the country the Andaman and Nicobar islands and Arunachal Pradesh.
- Researchers discovered two new plant species namely Dendrophthoe longensis(from Andaman and Nicobar islands) and Petrocosmea arunachalense (from Arunachal Pradesh).
- Dendrophthoe longensis is an aerial stem-parasitic flowering plant species discovered from the Long Islands of middle Andamans.
- It was found on the specific host plant – Mango, Mangifera indicain the edge of evergreen forests, low land areas of tropical forests.
- The species is from the family Mistletoe – a group of hemi-parasitic flowering plants which exhibit a suite of remarkable adaptations associated with the hemi-parasitic habitat.
- The species is sparsely scattered and confined to a few localities of Long Island.
- Aerial stem-parasitic flowering mistletoe plants are under great pressure due to destruction of natural habitat and other anthropogenic activities especially timber harvesting of host tree species, developmental works which are causing population declines worldwide.
- Petrocosmea arunachalense is a very small herb and the researchers located it inside a cave indicating that the species requires less sunlight
- The species is completely white with purple blotch and the plant has a hairy texture.
- It is only the second known species from the genus Petrocosmea in India.
