The privilege of naming a new plant

While astronomers put name new exoplanets, while you were actively looking at the universe of celestial bodies to those who "baptize", in the skirt of the sierra of Gredos, one of the most tracked of the Iberian Peninsula by the botanists, a delicate and beautiful flower blue waiting to be discovered.

To know how many times I had been seen by hikers and scientists regardless of that still no one had said what name they had to call it.That was until 2019, when a team of botanists spaniards discovered it and found that it was a new species. Very far from there, about 2,000 kilometers away, in the island of la Gomera, also had a place a finding extraordinary: a single individual of a new species totally unknown to beautiful red flowers...

Although it may seem strange, at the time that any corner of the planet can fall prey to the camera of a mobile phone, there are still species of plants to discover. Just last year the botanists Spanish found up to 20 new species, eight of them in Spanish territory.

"Every year we describe a fairly important number of new species all over the planet, around 2,000. Also in the Iberian Peninsula. And if here left for you to discover, because we can imagine how many there will be in countries that have the greatest biodiversity and that are less explored, such as tropical...", account GuíaVerde Mario Fernández-Mazuecos, a postdoctoral researcher in the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid and member of the Society of Botanical Spanish (SEBOT), who participated in the discovery of this plant, until then, anonymous of the Sierra de Gredos.

The investigator Mario Fernández-Mazuecos

"The problem that exists is that despite the fact that there are still many species to discover, each time fewer resources are dedicated to this type of work?, stresses Fernández-Mazuecos, who notes that "the description of a new species can be at times a little grateful from the point of view of funding and resources, because it is a work that is little valued in relationship to time that is".

"You can use the more advanced techniques, such as genomics, but also requires a more basic leaving the field, find out what species there are, know that it is described to be able to recognize a new one when you find it, and then once you take samples of the possible new species do all the work of a magnifying glass, the analysis of the characteristics of that species to be able to differentiate it from other". This lack of resources is compounded, as noted, the lack of recognition of the administration and of the scientific world. This work, points out, is not published in journals with "high-impact".

Two of the new species discovered

A carnivorous plant and up to seven species in the daisy family

The collection made by SEBOT of the species discovered by botanists Spanish sum 20 plants, seven of them in mainland Spain and the Canary Islands. Highlights include the Lotus gomerythusof the spectacular red flowers, of which only one has detected an individual, in an area that has freed itself from herbivores. The above-mentioned Linaria vettonica of the Sierra de Gredos calls attention to have gone unnoticed after hundreds of campaigns collecting botany.

For its part, the botanical Catalan Joel Calvo has been described up to seven new species of the family of the daisies in the Andes, and have found four new species of moss, as well as a carnivorous plant or a shrub in other discoveries.

We asked Mario Fernández-Mazuecos how are these campaigns botanical and the answer is that they require a great deal of knowledge and a later work, comprehensive. "Describing new species is not the main part of my work. I dedicate myself to study the evolution of the species, while I also do field campaigns. In that case you know the species that you want to collect to make certain genetic studies, for example to analyze how they relate to some other species or where there is more genetic diversity of a species," says the researcher.

"You plan the species you want to collect and take samples with a few methodologies. What happens is that in these campaigns of collection sometimes you can find species that are not exactly what you are looking for and that can be similar or related, but that does not fit well with the descriptions of the known species. These are the samples that we need to collect and take to your research center to compare with other similar. You can do genetic studies if they are necessary to see where to fit these plants or if it is one that we did not know," he says.

Lotus gomerythusand Linaria vettonia

This would, he says, the way of working in your field. In addition there are researchers who make a work "more floristic", which is dedicated to organize collection campaigns "in which they are interested in describing in a very detailed way the species that are in a particular region". As she explains it, these specialists go into an area and take samples of the plants found, which is then deposited in a herbarium, a botanical collection where it will remain available indefinitely for any botanist.

"In these campaigns, the majority of species found will be well-known, but in certain regions you can find plants that don't fit",he explains.

And what happens when we have a suspicion that we are dealing with a flower that no one knows? Mario Fernández-Mazuecos explains to us the process with which we will be able to give the news that we have a new species. First, the botanist must assign the species to a genus, and review the literature to compare their morphology with that of the other. There may also be genetic studies to confirm that there are obvious differences that are in addition to the morphological. If none of this fits what we already know we will have a new species. There will be then give it a name and publish the finding in a scientific journal along with some necessary technical descriptions. From then on we may add a species to human knowledge.