Researchers found an unknown member of the Sunflower family in Great Bend National Park in Texas — a new plant genus and species have been discovered for the first time in the U.S. national parks in nearly fifty years.
Flowers call Ovicula Biradiata And in a study published in the journal Phytokeys in February, it described what was called the “wool devil.” Botanists are well known to the Big Bend National Park highlight the fact that even widely studied areas still produce surprises.
“While many believe that the flora and fauna in our national parks may have been documented now, scientists still have amazing discoveries in these iconic protected landscapes,” Isaac Lichter Marck, a plant taxonomist at the research institute, said in a statement from the research institute.
Lichter Marck says O. Biradiata Belongs to the sunflower family, even if it does not resemble its typical sun-like relative.
“After sequencing its DNA and comparing it with other specimens in the college's plant specimen chamber, we found that this small and fuzzy plant is not only a new species in the sunflower seed population, but also enough to differ from the closest relatives to guarantee a completely new genus,” he added. Genus are a biological classification between species and families.
A park volunteer first observed the Wool Devil in March 2024 and uploaded his information to a community science application called Inaturalist. This small plant has furry white leaves and maroon stripes of ray flowers (petal parts of the flower head). Botanists call it “abdominal plant” because it is easiest to observe when lying down. It can only thrive in rocky, dry habitat after it rains.
“Plants that thrive in the desert are often very unique, with development of specific mechanisms to withstand extreme drought and dispersal conditions of these arid landscapes – from the structure of storage to the rapid life cycle triggered by rainwater,” Lichter Marck explained. “However, as climate change drives the desert to become hotter, drier, highly specialized plants, such as the wool devil's faces extinction.” Lichter Marck added that the team observed the plant only at three narrow sites on the northern edge of the park, which increased the likelihood of their recording of species that had faded.
“Oval” means “lamb”, which refers to the furry leaves of the plant and the big-horned sheep with big bends, while “biradiata”, which means “bisexual”, highlights its maroon stripes.
“Now that the species has been identified and named, we have not yet learned much about it,” said Carolyn Whiting, a botanist at the Big Bend National Park who studied it. She hopes to find other wool devils crowds elsewhere in the park and learn more about their life cycle and reproductive processes. Whiting said that as the drought is currently hitting the area, it is not clear whether new plants will appear later this spring.
Back in the lab, researchers documented the presence of glands on the wool devil, which were found to have anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory compounds in other members. Another co-author of the study, Keily Peralta of the California School of Science, still needs to confirm these traits in new species, but another co-author of the study said: “This finding highlights the potential knowledge we gain from conserving plant diversity in fragile desert ecosystems.”
