India: Researchers Rediscover Rare Tree Species After 140 Years

After 140 years, researchers have accidentally rediscovered the tree species Uniyala multibracteata, believed to have been lost and locally known as Kattupoovamkurunnila, in the unprotected mountain regions of Vagamon in India’s Western Ghats. This is according to a recently published study in the Journal of Threatened Taxa.

Kattupoovamkurunnila, originally discovered in 1880 by the British naturalist Richard Henry Beddome during his botanical research in India in Peerumade, had not been collected again after that year. Scientists therefore assumed that this species was either threatened with extinction or already extinct.

The genus Uniyala comprises eleven species that occur exclusively in southern India and Sri Lanka. Of these, nine species are specifically native to the southern Western Ghats. As part of the study led by botanist Jomy Augustine, researchers were able to collect specimens of Kattupoovamkurunnila in Idukki district in the southern state of Kerala.

The discovery of the very rare small tree outside protected areas highlights the rich biodiversity of the Western Ghats, as the study’s authors emphasize. Kattupoovamkurunnila had not previously been recorded in any protected area or national park. This rediscovery of Uniyala multibracteata underscores the need to preserve the unprotected forests of the Western Ghats as well. Using these forests for purposes other than forestry could lead to the extinction of such species.

Kattupoovamkurunnila, a small tree or large shrub, reaches a height of two to five meters. The leaves of this species are hairy. From October to March, it bears purple flowers. Its natural habitat extends across evergreen forests and rocky grasslands at elevations of 1,200 meters above sea level.