Rare endemic shrub rediscovered in Mount Abu

{ AFTER OVER A CENTURY } BOTANICAL SURVEY OF INDIA RESEARCH

- Dinesh Bothra

A plant species that had vanished from scientific records for more than a century has been rediscovered on the rocky plateaus of Mount Abu.

Strobilanthes hallbergii, an endemic flowering shrub previously known only from a single collection in 1916, has now been located again in its original habitat by researchers from the Botanical Survey of India (BSI).

The species was first discovered by E Blatter, a pioneering botanist in British India who conducted extensive plant explorations in Rajasthan and across the Indian subcontinent.