China News Service, Kunming, February 25 (Reporter Hu Yuanhang) The reporter learned from the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences on the 25th that the staff of the garden and horticultural center of the garden discovered a new species of chandeliers during the investigation in the Lujujiang River Valley in Yunnan Province— - Green Juice River Chandelier Flowers.
Currently, the plant has been classified as critically endangered.
According to reports, chandeliers belong to the oleander family and are mainly distributed in Africa, tropical Asia and Oceania.
Traditionally there are about 200 species in the genus worldwide. Recently, based on systematic studies, Bruyns et al. have named the genus L. and a class called "stapeliads" (succulent plants, mainly produced in some genera in Africa, such as Rhinoceros) The plants were incorporated into the genus Chandelier, and its species increased to more than 700 species.
At present, a total of 22 wild plants of the genus Chandelier have been recorded in China.
In mid-September 2021, when the staff of the Banna Botanical Garden Gardening and Horticulture Center were investigating plants in the Lujujiang River Valley in Yunnan Province, they found an unknown plant of the genus Chandelier that was in full bloom.
The plant was finally confirmed as a new species after anatomical photography, literature review and type specimens of similar species.
According to the origin of the pattern, it is named the green juice river chandelier flower.
The picture shows the green juice river chandelier flower.
Provided by Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences
The green juice river chandelier is similar in shape to the key crown chandelier, but the pedicel of this species is longer and sparsely pubescent, the diameter of the upper part of the corolla tube is only half of the lower part, the inner part of the corolla lobes is densely covered with white villous hairs, and the outer ring is paired with the corolla. The lobes are 2-toothed, and these features can be clearly distinguished from their relatives.
At present, researchers have only found one population on the back hillside of Lvjue Town, Yimen County, which is scattered sporadically in the dry-hot valley with savannah shrubs and grasses, and the habitat is seriously disturbed by humans. extremely dangerous.
The related research results, titled Ceropegia luzhiensis, a new species of Apocynaceae from Yunnan, China, were recently published online in the Nordic Journal of Botany.
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