Bangladesh has added four new names to the world’s flora. Two of them have been found in Lauyachhara forest of Moulvibazar. One of the other two was discovered in Bandarban, the other in the forest of Sherpur. All the four plants are small.
Scientists in Bangladesh have discovered these four plants in the last four years. Apart from this, 150 new names have been added to the list of plant species of the country in four years. Of these, 79 were found through direct surveys in the country. The names of the remaining 61 are found in the archives of the Royal Botanic Gardens in the United Kingdom, known as Q Herbarium.
Hosne Ara, former director of the Bangladesh National Herbarium, and Abul Hasan, a professor in the Department of Botany at Dhaka University, led the discovery of the four plants. The results of their survey were published in 2016 in the Science Journal of the National Herbarium.
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a global organization for the conservation of nature, there are about five million species of flowering plants in the world. Of these, Q2 herbarium has identified about 295,000 plants. According to the Bangladesh National Herbarium, the state-owned plant conservation agency, there were 3,640 plant species in the country till 2019. Although 10 more plant species were later discovered.
Scientists say that Bangladesh’s plant diversity is very rich due to its geographical features and climate. Sardar Nasir Uddin, chief scientific officer of the National Herbarium and head of the survey team for discovering new plants, told Prothom Alo that there are so many species of trees in so few places in so few countries in the world. This is due to the fact that the terrain of Bangladesh has a dense ecosystem, freshwater flows, sea and coastal areas and mountainous ecosystems. As a result, various types of plants grow here.
One of the four new plants is named Aloe vera haraganesis. It is found in the Haraganj reserve forest of Lauyachhara in Moulvibazar. That is why the plant is named after that forest. However, researchers have also found this plant in the Rema-Kalenga forest of Habiganj. A few saplings of the plant were planted in the garden of the National Herbarium on the Dhaka Zoo Road. But did not live long.
The second newly discovered plant is named Alokasia salarkhani. It is also found in the Lauyachhara forest of Moulvibazar. The plant is named after Professor Mohammad Salar Khan, who is known as the father of the study of plant classification in Bangladesh. This scientist from Bangladesh died in 1997.
The third plant is named Typhonium ilatum. It has been collected from the forest of Sherpur district. Scientists have named the fourth plant Kolokasia hasani. It is named after Abul Hasan, a senior professor in the Department of Botany at Dhaka University, who is one of the members of the research team that discovered the plant. It is locally called Tita Kachu. The plant is collected from the forest of Bandarban district. However, this species has been found in Khagrachhari and Rangamati. The four newly discovered kachu species are not taken as food locally.
Professor Abul Hasan of the Department of Botany of Dhaka University told Prothom Alo that there are many plants in the rivers and seas besides the forest lands of the country. There was no good survey. As a result, the actual number of plant species in the country is still unknown.
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