New Plant and Fungus Species Discovered
Baku, June 7 (AZERTAC). The palms that Vietnamese villagers weave into hats, many varieties of lichens that depend on the pristine environment of the Great Smoky Mountains, and small, shrub-like trees that are threatened by development and deforestation in Brazil were among the scores of plant and fungus species that scientists at The New York Botanical Garden discovered and described in the course of one year.
As part of their effort to catalog all plant life on Earth, Botanical Garden scientists named 81 new species of plants and fungi in 2011. They also established four new genera and two new orders of plants and fungi. Genera and orders are groupings of related species.
Working in the field, laboratory, and research collections around the world, Garden scientists found or cataloged new species in a wide variety of familiar plant groups, including South American blueberry relatives and bromeliads; Southeast Asian mushrooms; a Mexican oak; and a Colombian cycad, one of a family of plants often referred to as "living fossils."
The announcement of the new species discoveries comes little more than a month after another important development concerning the study and conservation of Earth`s botanical biodiversity -- the agreement by the Garden and three other leading botanical gardens to create the first online catalog of plants by 2020. The project, called the World Flora, will make comprehensive information about as many as 400,000 plant species -- including the 81 newly discovered species -- available to the international community.
All of the new species, genera, and orders were either published by Garden scientists in scientific journals or books in 2011 or had been accepted for publication by the end of the year. In many cases, Garden scientists collaborated with researchers at other institutions.
The discoveries highlight developments that are shaping botanists` research in the 21st century not only in the field and in plant collections but also increasingly in the laboratory. In addition, they call attention to the environmental risks that many plant species face.
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