A new native plant species belonging to the Passifloraceae — Passion fruit family — has been found by scientists of Chennai.
“It is a climber. We have named it as Passiflora shervarayensis because we found it in the Servarayan Hills and presented it at the International Conference on Innovative and Emerging Trends in Botany in 2019, held at Alagappa University, Karaikudi,” said S. Abdul Kader, Assistant Professor of Botany, Presidency College, who is the leader of the team that found the plant.
The other members of the team are S. Sunil Kumar, Siddha Central Research Institute, Arumbakkam, M. Senthil Kumar, Department of Botany, Vivekanandha College for Arts and Sciences for Women (Autonomous) Erode and a research student S.A. Wasim Akram.
“We first found it in a coffee estate in Yercaud and again in Servararayan hills during our subsequent visits. We checked the existing literature on plant species and herbarium collections and could not find any description of the new…