Conservation news 153


explants of P. grandiflora. The explants were surface steri- lized and inoculated on induction media. After 8 weeks, the regeneration rate of adventitious shoots was 98%, and the induction rate of somatic embryos was 53%. Three months after transplanting rooted plantlets, the survival rate was .90%. The successful regeneration of P. grandiflora using


plant tissue culture opens up possibilities for restoring wild populations, although protection of the three known populations is also required. We plan to model the future trend of these populations to guide conservation efforts, and to use P. grandiflora as a germplasm source to study and cultivate new flower varieties for social and economic benefits.


JING MENG1 (mengjing2514@163.com), DAN CHANG1 ,


JUN HE2 and JIE CAI2 1College of Landscape and Horticulture, Yunnan


Agricultural University, Kunming, Yunnan, China. 2Germplasm Bank ofWild Species, Kunming Institute of


Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan, China


This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence CC BY 4.0.


Rediscovery of Swertiadilatatavar. pilosaafter 140 years


In India, the genus Swertia L. of the family Gentianaceae is represented by 36 species and 10 varieties, distributed mainly in temperate and alpine Himalayan regions but with a few species in the Western Ghats. The genus is highly valued for its medicinal importance and most of the species are known by the common names chirayita or chiroto. Swertia chirayita is a highly exploited species facing severe threats. With similar morphological appearance in their vegetative state, most of the allied species are also exploited from the wild and are thus threatened. Because of their com- plex taxonomy, limited data are available on the distribution of allied species, and only eight have been assessed for the IUCN Red List. Swertia dilatata, which is closely allied to Swertia pur-


purascens and Swertia paniculata, is differentiated mainly on the basis of dilated stamen filaments. It was first de- scribed by C.B. Clarke from Nepal in 1883 along with a variety, S. dilatata var. pilosa. The two varieties can be differentiated by the greenish yellow corolla and glabrous leaf and calyx of S. dilatata var. dilatata and pale to purplish pink corolla and hairy leaf and calyx of S. dila- tata var. pilosa.Variety dilatata is common, reported from the eastern HimalayasofIndia,Nepal,China and Myanmar, but variety pilosa has not been recorded since thetypecollection.


Swertia dilatata var. pilosa, showing (a) habit, (b) leaf, (c) flower bud, (d) flower, (e) corolla, (f) calyx, (g) stigma and (h) stamen.


In October 2023, during a field trip to the East Pindar


range in Badrinath Forest division of Chamoli district, Uttarakhand, India, we collected a specimen of Swertia from the Deval region. We identified it as S. dilatata var. pilosa, the first record of this variety after 140 years and the first record in India. The specimen has been deposited in the herbariumofHNBGarhwal University, Srinagar (GUH). We observed that unlike other species of the genus,


S. dilatata var. pilosa is uncommon. We found only a few individuals, growing in semi-shaded localities of evergreen forest of Cupressus torulosa D. Don ex Lamb. We currently consider this variety to be Data Deficient but we are working on a full assessment for the IUCN Red List.


SUNIT SINGH1 ,J.P.MEHTA1 ,AMBER SRIVASTAVA2


(ambersri108@gmail.com) and SUSHIL KUMAR SINGH2 1Department of Botany & Microbiology, HNB Garhwal


University, Srinagar (Garhwal), Uttarakhand, India. 2Botanical Survey of India, Northern Regional Centre, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India


This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence CC BY 4.0.


Oryx, 2024, 58(2), 145–154 © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S003060532400005X


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