The mystery plant sat in the Field Museums herbarium, a library of dried plant specimens, for years, but Hensold and her coworkers didnt forget about it. “When you have a plant no one can put in a household, it can fall through the scientific fractures.
The group tried to evaluate the plants DNA utilizing the dried specimens, however when that didnt work, they got the help of Patricia Álvarez-Loayza, a researcher who operates in the Manu National Park and has actually invested years keeping track of the forest there, to discover a fresh specimen of the plant. She did, and when the researchers back at the Field examined it in the museums Pritzker DNA Laboratory, they were stunned by what they found.
” When my colleague Rick Ree sequenced it and informed me what family it came from, I informed him the sample must have been infected. I was like, no chance, I just couldnt believe it,” recalls Hensold.
The DNA analysis exposed that the secret plants closest family members remained in the Picramniaceae family, which was a big offer to the botanists because it didnt look anything like its closest relatives, at least at very first look. “Looking closer at the structure of the small little flowers I recognized, oh, it really has some resemblances but offered its overall characters, no one would have put it in that household,” says Hensold.
Scientists Nancy Hensold, Patricia Álvarez-Loayza, and Robin Foster (delegated right) working in the Field Museums herbarium. Credit: Juliana Philipp
The scientists sent out specimens to Wayt Thomas, a manager emeritus at The New York Botanical Garden and a professional in Picramniaceae. “When I looked and opened the bundle at the specimens, my first response was, What the heck? These plants didnt look like anything else in the household,” states Thomas, the lead author of the paper in Taxon. “So I decided to look more thoroughly– as soon as I looked actually carefully at the tiny, 2-3 milimeter long flowers, things fell into place.”
With the DNA finally revealing what family the plant came from, the researchers had the ability to offer it an official taxonomic name, Aenigmanu alvareziae. The genus name, Aenigmanu, suggests “secret of Manu,” while the types name remains in honor of Patricia Álvarez-Loayza, who collected the very first specimens utilized for the genetic analysis. (Its worth noting that while Aenigmanu alvareziae is brand-new to scientists, it has actually long been utilized by the Indigenous Machiguenga people.).
The scientists state that finally getting a scientific classification for Aenigmanu alvareziae might eventually help safeguard the Amazon jungle in the face of logging and environment modification.
Especially Amazon plants. And especially plants in the upper Amazon. To comprehend the changes taking place in the tropics, to secure what stays, and to bring back areas that have been cleaned out, plants are the structure for whatever that lives there and the most important to study,” says Foster.
Reference: “Aenigmanu, A New Genus of Picramniaceae from Western Amazonia” 6 October 2021, Taxon.
A specimen of a leaf and tiny orange fruit from the mystery plant. Credit: Patricia Álvarez-Loayza
” Mystery plant” from the Amazon declared a new types after almost 50 years of flummoxing researchers.
He collected samples of the plants leaves and fruits, however all the researchers he showed them to wound up scratching their heads– not only were they unable to identify the plant as a species that had actually previously been explained by scientists, but they couldnt even state it a new species, because they could not tell what household it belonged to. In a brand-new study in the journal Taxon, scientists evaluated the plants DNA and determined where it belongs in the family tree of trees, lastly providing it a name meaning “Mystery of Manu,” after the park in Peru it came from.
A shot of the mystery tree in the Amazon jungle. Credit: Patricia Álvarez-Loayza
” When I first saw this little tree, while out on a forest trail leading from the field station, it was the fruit– looking like an orange-colored Chinese lantern and juicy when ripe with a number of seeds– that caught my attention,” says Robin Foster, the researcher who originally gathered the mystery plant in Perus Manu National Park, a retired manager at Chicagos Field Museum and now a scientist with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. “I didnt actually think it was special, other than for the truth that it had qualities of plants in several different plant households, and didnt fall nicely into any household. Typically, I can inform the family by a quick look, however damned if I could put this one.”
Nancy Hensold, a botanist at the Field Museum, remembers him revealing her a dried specimen of the plant more than 30 years earlier. “I came to work at the Field Museum in 1990, and Robin showed me this plant.
He collected samples of the plants leaves and fruits, but all the researchers he revealed them to wound up scratching their heads– not just were they unable to identify the plant as a types that had formerly been explained by researchers, but they could not even declare it a new species, since they couldnt inform what family it belonged to. In a new study in the journal Taxon, researchers evaluated the plants DNA and identified where it belongs in the family tree of trees, finally offering it a name significance “Mystery of Manu,” after the park in Peru it came from.
” When I first saw this little tree, while out on a forest trail leading from the field station, it was the fruit– looking like an orange-colored Chinese lantern and juicy when ripe with several seeds– that caught my attention,” says Robin Foster, the researcher who originally gathered the secret plant in Perus Manu National Park, a retired manager at Chicagos Field Museum and now a researcher with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. “I didnt really believe it was unique, except for the fact that it had attributes of plants in a number of different plant households, and didnt fall neatly into any household. The mystery plant sat in the Field Museums herbarium, a library of dried plant specimens, for years, however Hensold and her associates didnt forget about it.