Guwahati: Researchers from the Botanical Survey of India (BSI) have uncovered a rare plant known as the ‘Indian lipstick plant’ in the isolated Anjaw area of Arunachal Pradesh after more than a century.
In 1912, British botanist Stephen Troyte Dunn identified the plant (Aeschynanthus monetaria Dunn) based on plant samples collected in Arunachal Pradesh by another English botanist, Isaac Henry Burkill.
Some members in the genus Aeschynanthus are known as lipstick plants because of their tubular crimson corollas, according to BSI scientist Krishna Chowlu, who wrote an article about the discovery in the journal Current Science.
Chowlu obtained a few specimens of Aeschynanthus from Hyuliang and Chipru in Anjaw district during floristic studies in Arunachal Pradesh in December 2021.
A rigorous examination of the fresh specimens, as well as a review of the pertinent records, showed that the specimens were Aeschynanthus monetaria, a species that had not been obtained from India since Burkill in 1912.
The genus name Aeschynanthus is derived from the Greek aischyne or aischyn, which implies humiliation or embarrassment, and Anthos which means flower, according to an essay co-authored by Gopal Krishna.
The fleshy orbicular leaves of Aeschynanthus monetaria Dunn are morphologically unique and unusual among all Aeschynanthus species known from India, with a greenish upper surface and purplish-green below surface. The specific epithet’monetaria’ means’mint-like,’ referring to the leaves’ appearance.
At heights ranging from 543 to 1134 metres, the plant grows in damp, evergreen forests. Between October and January, the plant blooms and bears fruit.
Following the rules of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the global authority on the status of the natural world and the steps needed to conserve it, the species has been provisionally classified as ‘endangered.’
“Landslides are common in Arunachal Pradesh’s Anjaw district. In Arunachal Pradesh, development activities such as road widening, school construction, new settlements and marketplaces, and jhum farming are among the biggest threats to this species, according to Chowlu’s abstract in the Current Science study.