New plant species discovered in China

Welsh Primrose - a flowering plant from the Primulaceae family (Image courtesy: Wikipedia) (Representational image)

Beijing: Chinese scientists have discovered a new endangered species of flowering plant from the Primulaceae family.

The new species, Primula Zhui, known in Chinese as Zhu Hua Baochun, was named after Zhu Hua, a researcher from Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), reports Xinhua news agency.

"It is named after Zhu for his great contribution to botanical research in tropical areas," said Yang Bin, author of the paper and researcher with Southeast Asian Biodiversity Research Centre under the CAS.

Currently, there are fewer than 50 individual plants of the new species in three localities in Yunnan. It has been designated a critically endangered species according to the classification by the World Conservation Union.

There are about 500 Primula species in the world. They are native to the temperate northern hemisphere and high altitude areas.