GUWAHATI: Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Bhopal Researchers have Found a new species of plant belonging to the African Violets Living in Mizoram and Adjoining Regions in Myanmar.

Even the newly-described species Didymocarpus vickifunkiae (Gesneriaceae) is now known from three places in Mizoram and regarded as an endangered species. It’s an epiphyte (plants which grow on trees) and creates light pink blossoms throughout the monsoons. The species has been named in honor of late Dr. Vicki Ann Funk, also a renowned Botanist who functioned in Smithsonian Institute, USA.

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In addition to different discoveries from the IISER Bhopal Research Team at the last couple of decades, this recent discovery indicates that the rich biodiversity of these northeastern sections of India remains laborious and there are several species of plants which remain undiscovered.

“This discovery has been a result of extensive fieldwork throughout northeast India combined with rigorous research of previous selections stored in herbariums throughout the world,” stated an IISER spokesperson.

The discovery was published in the reputed diary Systematic Botany (a peer reviewed journal published by American Society for Plant Taxonomists) at a newspaper co authored by Prasanna NS, research scholar, along with Dr Vinita Gowda, associate professor in department of biological sciences at IISER Bhopal.

“Northeast India is still home to exceptionally varied flora due to its biogeographic positioning as part of just two biodiversity hotspots: the Indo-Burma hotspot along with the Eastern Himalayas,” Dr Vinita Gowda said.

“That is science at its best form – a field of evaluation that seeks awareness and thickness as a consequence, for guy, there’s a lot to know in the marvels of nature,” Dr Gowda added.

According to the investigators that the new discovery brings fresh insights to the distinctive evolutionary trajectory of flora at India’s northeast, understand for the biodiversity. Past the academic urge to record biodiversity, discovering the’missing pieces’ of the biodiversity puzzle are all significant in designing conservation strategies to safeguard the delicate ecosystem of these hotspots, a researcher stated.

Didymocarpus is a genus belonging to the plant family Gesneriaceae (generally called’African Violets’) and its members have been dispersed from Western Himalayas into Sumatra. The majority of these species are narrow endemics and need technical habitats to live, thereby behaving as a sign of habitats. There are 106 now known species of the genus, of which 26 are within populous countries of India, the study team educated.

Due to its complicated geology and climatic requirements, northeast India, is home to a varied flora and fauna. But much of this remains poorly recorded, also since the IISER Bhopal group was analyzing the development and biogeography of all Didymocarpus plants.

While amassing the plants for research, writers stumbled upon a plant that was different from most of plant plant plants. After critical evaluation of their morphology, printed literature and previous collections which are maintained at the natural history museums in India and UK, they explained this as a new species.”

“The biodiversity within this area of the nation is poorly understood because of reduced priority in study, inaccessibility and remoteness, challenges which are being handled by study teams like the TrEE laboratory,” read an announcement from the Institute.

The group unites conventional methods of taxonomy with contemporary techniques like molecular phylogenetics to unravel the biodiversity of this northeast and put it in the context of their bigger Asian landscape.