ITANAGAR, Feb 11: Four new plants of the aroid family have been discovered from Arunachal by a research team led by Associate Professor Dr Hui Tag of the plant systematic and ethno-botanical research laboratory of RGU’s botany department.
The new species are Arisaema arunachalensis, Aglaonema tassai, Colocasia adiana and Sauromatum nangkarense.
Dr Tag along with scholar Dr Atek Nangkar discovered the species during 2014-2019, and the detailed taxonomic information about the new species has been reported in the taxonomic journal Pleione, published by the East Himalayan Society for Spermatophyte Taxonomy.
According to Dr Tag, the four species grow under dense forest floor with rich organic soil layers. He said that, of the four new species, Aglaonema tassai and Arisaema arunachalensis were found to be rare in their natural habitat and hence need to be conserved.
Drs Tag and Nangkar have earlier also reported 59 species of aroid flora from the Arunachal Himalayan region of India.
“The aroid flora of Arunachal Pradesh, which has immense ecological and economic value, has been largely ignored by botanists and conservationists, and therefore the particular group of species still largely remains unexplored,” Dr Tag said.
