New Species of African Violets Found in Mizoram

Aizawl: Scientists from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Bhopal found a new variant of the African Violets in Mizoram.

Commonly known as African violets, Didymocarpus is a genus belonging to the plant family Gesneriaceae whose family members are distributed in Asia from Western Himalayas to Sumatra. There are 106 currently known species of this genus of which 26 are in the northeast.

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According to scientist the newly described species, Didymocarpus vickifunkiae is currently known from only three locations near the north-eastern State’s border with Myanmar and is considered an endangered species. It is an epiphyte- a plant that grows on trees and produces light pink flowers during the monsoons.  

The findings have been published in Systematic Botany, a peer-reviewed journal published by the American Society for Plant Taxonomists, in a paper co-authored by research scholar Prasanna N.S and Vinita Gowda, Associate Professor of Biology Sciences at IISER Bhopal.

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Vinita Gowda, Associate Professor of Biology Sciences at IISER said, “The Mizoram plant is new to science which could be restricted to those areas because of reasons to be studied or it could be more widespread in an area where they remain to be spotted. But its discovery has underscored the floral diversity of the northeast that has unique biogeographic placement as a part of the two biodiversities hotspots-the Indo-Burma and Eastern Himalayas.”

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