At a time when climate change and rapid urbanization is taking a toll on the flora, researchers from the Botanical Survey of India (BSI) had a pleasant surprise when they rediscovered a rare, threatened and presumed extinct species Brachystelma attenuatum after a gap of 188 years.
The lucky scientists hail from BSI in Dehradun and Himachal Pradesh University in Shimla.
This species was first discovered and described in 1835 by British botanists -- John Forbes Royle and Robert Wight -- from Doongie village (now Hamirpur in Himachal Pradesh).
In 2020, while conducting field surveys in the Western Himalayas, some interesting tuberous plants were observed by Nishant Chauhan in the Bhoranj region of Hamirpur.
These plants were brought to the BSI and there it was identified by Amber Srivastava as Brachystelma parviflorum, a species thought to be extinct by the scientists 186 years ago.
Recently, another presumed extinct species Brachystelma attenuatum has been rediscovered in Hamirpur and Mandi districts.
The species was first observed last August, but during that time the plants were in their last stage of growth and flowering period was over, making it difficult to confirm their identity, explained Chauhan.
This year, with the commencement of the flowering season, researchers revisited the same localities in March and after examining the detailed characteristics of the flowering plants they were able to identify it as Brachystelma attenuatum and the rediscovery was confirmed.
The rediscovery of both these species is published in the international journal 'Oryx' published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna and Flora International.
Brachystelma is a genus of more than 100 species in the Apocynaceae family found in Africa, Asia, and Australia, with the majority found in South Africa.
In India, the genus is represented by 40 species, primarily distributed in the Western Ghats, with only four species reported from northern India, Chauhan said.
Of these, only two species, B. parviflorum and B. attenuatum, are reported from the Indian Western Himalayas. Srivastava said: "The rediscovery of two rare species which were considered extinct from the Western Himalayas in such a short period indicates the need for more species specific field surveys and explorations in this area so that many such rare species can be discovered and their proper conservation should be done."
Last month, BSI scientist Krishna Chowlu too had rediscovered yet another rare species of flora called the 'Indian Lipstick plant' in the Anjaw district of Arunachal Pradesh after around 100 years. The BSI scientist Krishna Chowlu conducted a floristic survey in December 2021, where he collected some samples of the plant from the Hyuliang and Chipru villages. After review, he recently published an article on its rediscovery in the ‘Current Science’ journal.