Top 10 species new to science in 2021

In 2021, Kew scientists and our partners worldwide named approximately 205 plants and fungi from Africa, Asia, the Americas and even here in the UK.

The identification of plants is still a big problem in the tropics and thousands of species remain without scientific names.

In contrast, new species of fungi can be found almost anywhere, and two million or more, are thought to be awaiting discovery by science. 

This is a problem because until a species has a scientific name, assessment of its extinction risk is near impossible, and that makes protection from extinction, and research into their properties, incredibly difficult.

Sadly, several species in 2021’s list are already considered as under threat of extinction from increasing threats to their natural habitat and three are already believed to be extinct in the wild.

Some of these new to science species could be important for people and planet – providing vital income to communities, or the potential to be developed into a future food or medicine, or simply to keep the habitat around them thriving.

This list is another reminder that this is our last chance to find unknown species, name them and hopefully protect them before they become globally extinct.

From a ghost orchid that grows in almost complete darkness to a fungus with teeth, here are 10 highlights.

Plus, published today is the first plant species, Uvariopsis dicaprio, named new to science in 2022...

2. The hidden banana seed fungus

One of the most unexpected species in the 2021 list is a microscopic new fungus, Fusarium chuoi, found growing in a banana plant seed in our Millennium Seed Bank.

The species was described by a group of scientists from the Westerdijk Institute in the Netherlands, the Plant Resources Centre in Vietnam and Kew.

It is the first time a new species of fungi has been described from our seed collections. 

Kew scientists found it by placing seeds on agar under sterile conditions, which allowed the fungus inside to grow out and be isolated in the lab.

Named for the Vietnamese word for banana, ‘chuoi’, reflecting the country and plant host where it was found, F. chuoi is what is known as an endophyte – a microscopic fungus that lives inside a plant without causing it any visible harm.

Finding new endophyte species and understanding if and how we can tell them apart from pathogens is crucial for protecting plant health.

4. Beautiful blue Barleria 

A beautiful blue Barleria - B. thunbergiiflora – was named new to science in 2021 after being collected by Kew scientist David Goyder on a National Geographic expedition to Angola.

National Geographic supports scientific expeditions to remote, biologically unknown areas of the world to uncover spectacular new species such as this pretty tropical flower.

Kew's Iain Darbyshire and colleagues from Namibia and USA named the plant after the showy genus of flowering plant Thunbergia, after noticing a likeness in their flowers.

The Barleria only grows in three sites in high elevation grassland on Kalahari sands, a large sand sea that extends from the northern Cape Province, South Africa, towards the equator.

The species was one of six new species of Barleria published last year from Angola and Namibia.

6. Firework flower

Named for its resemblance in flower to an exploding firework, this new species, Ardisia pyrotechnica, was named by a group of Malaysian and Japanese scientists in collaboration with Kew's Tim Utteridge.

The spectacular plant, a member of the primrose family, was found in the forest in Borneo and grows up to four metres tall.

Unfortunately A. pyrotechnica is already assessed as Critically Endangered under IUCN criteria, as it has only been found growing in two locations with a handful of plants and is under threat from plantations of palm oil.

Around 700 species of Ardisia are known throughout tropical and subtropical rainforests, many rare and threatened with extinction, and new finds are made most years.

7. A fungus with teeth

Hydnellum nemorosum is a rare tooth-fungus in the UK. Found growing in moss in Windsor Great Park under a sweet chestnut tree in 2008, this species was only described in 2021.

A DNA-based analysis of European specimens carried out at Kew with collaborators in Wales and Sweden revealed that Windsor is its only known site in Britain — so it has already been proposed for inclusion on the IUCN global Red List of threatened species and for legal protection under the Wildlife and Countryside Act in Britain.

Instead of gills, tooth fungi have tooth-like structures that produce spores.

They thrive in poor soils with low nitrogen levels and have a mutually beneficial partnership with living tree roots, swapping soil minerals for leaf sugars.

Their populations have declined across Europe due to habitat loss and elevated levels of nitrogen in the air.

Today they are recognised as threatened with extinction at global and national levels and are prioritised for conservation and protection.

10. Painted by Marianne North in 1876, and named in 2021

Fourteen species new to science of bright-blue-fruited rainforest shrubs in the coffee family, Rubiaceae, were recognised, named and published in 2021 by scientists from Kew and Queen Mary University of London.

Incredibly, one of these is thought to be the first of the Bornean Chassalia species ever to be illustrated – in an oil painting from 1876 by the eminent Victorian artist Marianne North.

At the time of the painting, Marianne was staying in Kuching on the Sarawak River with the Rajah and Ranee of Sarawak.

Today the painting is preserved as one of more than 800 by North in the Marianne North Gallery in Kew Gardens.

So far as we know, the first herbarium specimen (which is needed to characterise the species) of this plant was not collected until 1973, nearly 100 years later.

Lead researcher on the study, Tianyi Yu who was previously a MSc student at Kew, named the species Chassalia northiana in Marianne’s honour, only the fifth plant species to bear her name.

Twelve of the 14 new species have small geographic ranges in Borneo, meaning they are potentially threatened by habitat clearance, but fortunately several of these areas are already protected as national parks.

In contrast, the other two species are widespread across Borneo and so are unlikely to be threatened.