Big Bend National Park volunteer Deb Manley came across a unique plant last March in Texas’s Chihuahuan Desert. She took a photo and uploaded it to iNaturalist, but no one knew what it was. Turns out, the plant was a new species. Manley co-authored a scientific report on her find, which recently published in the scientific journal PhytoKeys.
The new species is called the woolly devil (Ovicula biradiata), and it’s the first new plant genus discovered in a U.S. national park in about 50 years. According to the California Academy of Sciences, the last time this happened was back in 1976, when scientists discovered the mountain-dwelling shrub July gold (Dedeckera eurekensis) in California’s Death Valley National Park.
The wooly devil is a small, fuzzy plant with red “horn”-like blooms coming out from the center. It’s a relative of the sunflower family, but scientists say O. biradiata is distinct enough to warrant its own genus.
See the new plant species discovered in Big Bend National Park here:
Image by Deb Manley
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