New plant species discovered from Antarctica named after India

Indian scientists have discovered a new plant species in Antarctica. The species is named Bryum bharatiensis – after the country’s name and India’s Antarctic station Bharati.

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This is the first time a plant species has been discovered in the four decades of the Indian Antarctic mission

Polar biologists of the Central University of Punjab were on Indian Antarctic Mission 2016-17 when Felix Bast, Associate Professor and Head of Department of Botany, stumbled upon a new native species of moss on rocks near Bharati station at Larsemann Hills, East Antarctica.

Bast collected samples of the green plants and brought them back to the university for research. He performed taxonomic assessments along with his PhD student Wahid Ul Rahman and collaborator Kriti Gupta, who is the head of the Botany department, DAV college, Bhatinda.