Scientist Discovers New Species of Wildflower That Only Grows in New Jersey

New Jersey’s own Triantha novacaesariensis – Credit: Yianni Laskaris for Temple University (supplied)

A researcher discovered a ‘rare’ wildflower that only grows in New Jersey—after studying a plant that everyone assumed to belong to another species.

In the Pine Barrens region of southern New Jersey, Temple University researcher Sasha Eisenman helped identify the long mistaken plant as unique to the state—a discovery that could help protect it for years to come.

In research published in Phytotaxa, Eisenman confirmed the plant is distinct from its closest known relatives, and formally named it Triantha × novacaesariensis—a Latinization of New Jersey.

“It’s very special, very rare (and) only exists in this one place in the entire world,” said Mr. Eisenman, an associate professor in horticulture.

That place is part of what makes the finding so compelling.

Stretching across nearly a million acres in southern New Jersey, the Pine Barrens National Reserve is one of the region’s most ecologically distinctive landscapes, home to rare habitats and plant life. Eisenman said the discovery is especially striking because the northeastern United States has been studied so extensively.

“To really identify something as new and unique is pretty rare these days,” he said.

For years, the plant, which features clusters of thin, strap-like leaves and white 6-petaled flowers that rise above the surrounding grasses, had been identified as Triantha racemosa, a species typically found much farther south or suspected to be a hybrid of Triantha racemosa and Triantha glutinosa.

Temple University horticulture professor Sasha Eisenman -Photo by Ryan Brandenberg (supplied)

To reach that conclusion, Eisenman combined genetics, fieldwork, and historical plant records, and studied plant samples preserved for long-term study, from across the US and Canada. He then compared them with field samples from New Jersey and related populations in Maine; New York; New Brunswick, New Jersey; Alabama; Georgia and Florida.

The study found that all three New Jersey plants carry a unique genetic signature and have distinct physical traits that set them apart from each other. The two previously known plants are also geographically isolated from the newly named wildflower.

“There’s genetic differences, there’s structural and morphological differences, and there’s also isolation,” Eisenman told Temple News.

That isolation is central to the story. According to the research, the nearest known populations of T. glutinosa and T. racemosa are hundreds of miles away. Eisenman said the evidence suggests the New Jersey plants likely originated long ago when the two species intermingled but have persisted on their own for thousands of years.

“It’s been a stable population or group of populations for a long time,” he said. “It’s not just a chance accident.”

The finding also carries real conservation value. Because the plant is now officially identified, researchers and land managers have a clearer basis for recognizing its significance and planning for its care.

“It’s really important to have a name on a plant in order for it to be conserved and protected,” Eisenman said. “Until it’s been identified as unique and named with a unique identification, it doesn’t have as much opportunity for protection and stewardship.”

The project began more than a decade ago and drew on support from a wide network of researchers, herbarium curators, and conservation partners across the U.S. and Canada.

For Eisenman, who studies naturally occurring and cultivated plants, the discovery reflects both a longstanding interest in plants and a broader commitment to sustainability.

The next step is for New Jersey to figure out how best to protect it.“For a rare plant tucked into one of New Jersey’s most distinctive natural landscapes, being formally recognized and given a name could make all the difference,” he concluded. Scientist Discovers New Species of Wildflower That Only Grows in New Jersey

Read More........→June 04, 2026

The future remains bleak for corals – but not all reefs are doomed

 

Christopher Cornwall, CC BY-NC-ND

Christopher Cornwall, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington and Orlando Timmerman, University of Cambridge

A recent report on global tipping points warned that coral reefs face widespread dieback and have reached a point from which they cannot recover.

But in our new research, we show this might not be the case for some reefs if corals can gain tolerance to rising temperatures, or if we can cut greenhouse gas emissions and restore reefs with heat-tolerant corals at scale.

Nevertheless, the outlook likely remains bleak.

 

All coral reefs are under threat but some may be more tolerant to warming waters. Christopher Cornwall, CC BY-NC-ND

Coral reefs provide habitat for thousands of other species in tropical oceans. They deliver economic value through fisheries and tourism and provide shoreline protection from storm surges and extreme weather by dampening the impact of waves.

However, coral reefs are vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Our study combines previously published assessments of climate impacts on different coral reefs and reviews the scientific consensus to examine how long reef structures could persist as climate change intensifies.

Ocean warming, acidification, darkening and deoxygenation all threaten the persistence of coral reefs. Ocean warming brings marine heatwaves, which are the leading cause of mass coral bleaching that has led to a global decline in coral cover.

Marine heatwaves have already led to a global decline in coral reefs. Christopher Cornwall, CC BY-NC-ND

Corals are animals that house microalgae within their tissues that provide sugar in exchange for nitrogen. When temperatures become too hot, corals expel these symbiotic microalgae, leaving behind white skeletons.

Ocean acidification reduces the ability of corals to build their skeletons through a process called calcification. Warming, darkening and deoxygenation can also reduce calcification.

When corals expel their symbiotic algae, all that remains are bleached skeletons. Chris Perry, CC BY-NC-ND

Coral reefs are built by adding calcium carbonate, coming mostly from corals but also coralline algae and other calcareous seaweeds. But as the ocean’s pH (a measure of acidity) is reduced, processes called bio-erosion and dissolution act to remove calcium carbonate.

Our meta-analysis examined how climate change affects the calcification and bio-erosion of coral reefs and we then applied these results to a global data set of reef growth.

There is no scientific consensus on which organisms will build future coral reefs. We explore four most likely scenarios:

1. Present-day extreme reefs represent the future of coral reefs. These are locations where temperatures are already warmer, waters are becoming more acidic and oxygen has dropped to conditions similar to those expected at the end of the century. These reefs are dominated by coralline algae and slow-growing heat-resistant corals.

Some reefs already experience conditions expected at the end of the century. Steeve Comeau, CC BY-NC-ND

2. Presently degraded reefs take over future reefs. These reefs are dominated by bio-eroders such as sponges and sea urchins and have low coral cover.

3. Corals can gain heat tolerance to an extent that keeps pace with low to moderate greenhouse gas emissions scenarios. Under these scenarios, only about 36% of global corals would be lost and there would be a moderate reduction in growth. These heat-tolerant reefs are dominated by faster growing corals with symbiotic microalgae that can evolve heat tolerance.

4. Reefs where restoration practices include using heat-tolerant corals that can then disperse to other regions. These restored reefs would have lower coral cover in remote regions lacking restoration or with unsuccessful restoration practices. This kind of reef restoration would need to cover half of global coral reefs to maintain net growth – an unlikely scenario.

We found coral reefs transition to net erosion under all scenarios, even under low to moderate greenhouse gas emissions, meaning they are dissolving or being eaten faster than they can grow. Only reefs with heat-tolerant corals could prevent this from occurring.

The next step for the scientific community is to determine which reefs can persist in the future using global efforts to combine information. The major issues is that we are missing measurements from large parts of the Pacific, and we do not know how deoxygenation or coastal darkening will impact coral reefs. The processes of reef bioerosion and dissolution are also poorly described.

Although the climate has been altered to the point of threatening the future survival of coral reefs, their fate is not doomed yet if we act now.

Another question is how long reef structures will persist after living corals are removed. We do not have an answer yet. It will take global efforts to rapidly obtain these measurements to better manage and protect coral reefs before climate change intensifies.

It is up to governments everywhere, including New Zealand, to better support these initiatives before it is too late.

Christopher Cornwall, Lecturer in Marine Biology, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington and Orlando Timmerman, Doctoral Candidate in Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Read More........→March 16, 2026