Parasitic plant presumed extinct rediscovered in Kerala’s Wayanad district

A parasitic works with vibrant orangish and yellowish flowers that was agelong thought extinct successful the chaotic has been rediscovered aft astir 175 years from Kerala’s Wayanad district.

Researchers person identified the plant, archetypal collected and described successful 1849 from Naduvattam successful Tamil Nadu by the Scottish Botanist Robert Wight, arsenic Campbellia aurantiaca (family Orobanchaceae). The works has present been rediscovered from a wood portion that lies little than 5 km from Chooralmala and Mundakkai, the sites of the deadly landslides of July 30, 2024.

A insubstantial connected its rediscovery by Salim Pichan of the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation; Jose Mathew, P.T. Arunraj and V.N. Sanjai from the Department of Botany, Sanatana Dharma College, Alappuzha, and B. Gopallawa from the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, has been published successful Kew Bulletin, the authoritative diary of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, England.

Although Wight had established the genus Campbellia with C. aurantiaca arsenic its benignant species, its taxonomic presumption had go entangled successful uncertainty owed to divergent interpretations by consequent taxonomists. The large situation earlier the present-day researchers was verifying beyond immoderate uncertainty that works specimens collected successful 2022-23 from the Thollayiram wood portion successful Wayanad was so the 1 described by Wight.

Complex task

What made their task a analyzable 1 was the lack of credible sightings oregon collections since Wight’s description. For implicit a period and a half, this had led to wide misinterpretation of the plant’s characteristics. “It was often assumed to beryllium synonymous with Christisonia bicolor, a taxon recovered successful the Western Ghats and Sri Lanka. The resulting ambiguity — including whether Wight’s genus Campbellia was simply a misdescription of the genus Christisonia – precluded a wide knowing of the plant,” Dr. Jose Mathew said.

Wight’s 1849 citation had work thus: “Neilgherries (Nilgiris), successful a tiny clump of jungle by the roadside adjacent Nedawuttim (Naduvattam), flowering successful August and September. As seen growing, this is simply a peculiar looking plant, the heavy orangish coloured tops lone appearing supra ground.”

A fewer years ago, Mr. Salim had chanced upon a “few vibrant orangish clumps of a holoparasitic taxon thriving successful humus-rich, moist, shady soil,” according to the probe paper.

Holoparasitic plants are incapable of photosynthesis and are babelike connected the big plants for nutrients. Careful introspection of its characteristics, supported by an extended survey of literature, had helped them found it arsenic Campbellia aurantiaca.

Physically, the works grows to a magnitude of 13-17 cm long. The insubstantial successful the Kew Bulletin has noted that the contiguous specimens person been collected from an eco-sensitive country susceptible to landslides, and truthful “encounters terrible earthy threats successful the locality.”