That’s cool, neat looking plant too.
I feel like the article goes a bit overboard with the significance, but journalists will be journalists…
One thing that is interesting is how a lot of these undiscovered plants are out in the arid parts of the West. Overall, plant diversity is not highest out there, it’s actually higher in various other parts of the US like the Gulf Coast. So are these new discoveries because the desert West is under-studied? Could be. I also wonder how much it is just due to the fact that it’s a heck of a lot easier to notice a new plant out in the desert than it is in the thick growth of subtropical biomes–especially with highly seasonal plants, which in the desert are very easy to catch because they pretty much all occur after the rains whereas in the subtropics you have warm season annuals, cool season, geophytes that pop up at weird times of year, spring ephemerals, etc. so you never know when a little plant will briefly be growing in the undergrowth.
puts geology hat on
There is also large amounts of variation in elevation and bedrock chemistry over very small distances (due to the younger tectonics) compared to the Eastern US which is a significant driver of speciation, especially small localized populations that can be easily overlooked
Scratch that, I think I was remembering a study about tree diversity, not plant diversity.
Dork.
But Arizona, California, and that part of Mexico are the center of diversity for oak species, which blew my mind when I moved out there and found that out
Reminds me of edleweiss! 