Researchers at Bodoland University in western Assam have recorded a new plant species that can go a long way in fighting cancer.
A species named Ophirrihza ricuripetala has been found at 675 meters above sea level in the Dima Hasao district of central Assam. It is classified under the Rubaceae family of flowering plants, in which the plant’s produce is coffee.
Rikuripetala means petals curved.
This discovery was published in the March 2021 issue. Nordic Journal of Botany.
“It is a new species to plant science and could be a potential anticancer research candidate. All members of this group have a secondary metabolite called camptothecin used in colon cancer, ”said Sanjib Barua, assistant professor in the Department of Botany of the University of Bodoland.
He co-authored the study with Birina Bhuyan, a research scholar at the University of Bodoland and Selim Mehmood of the University of Cotton, Guwahati.
“It is now our turn to search for camptothecin content in this novel species. This species is likely to be cultivated as a promising medicinal plant for the Northeast, but its agronomy is not known, ”Dr. Barua told Hindu.
Researchers spent a few months in the mountainous areas of Jatinga and Haflong in Dima Hasao district to locate some plants on a wooded mound. “The new species is restricted in the region where it grows in moist shady places,” he said.
Ophiorrhiza is a vegetarian genus distributed mainly from eastern India to the Western Pacific region from South China to northern Australia. According to the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families, 2017, it is a particularly rich and taxonomically complex gene with approximately 318 species worldwide.
In India, 47 species and nine varieties have been recorded and of them 21 species and one variety are from the Northeast.
Ophiorrhiza recurvipetala is a perennial herb with a maximum height of 60 cm and is branched. It gives a creamy white flower.
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