Creepy New Sunflower Discovered in Texas National Park

Researchers have discovered a previously unknown member of the sunflower family in Texas’ Big Bend National Park—the first time a new plant genus and species has been identified in a U.S. national park in almost five decades. The flower, called Ovicula biradiata and dubbed the “wooly devil,” is described in a study published February in the journal PhytoKeys. The Big Bend National Park is well known to botanists, underscoring the fact that even extensively studied regions can still yield surprises. “While many assume that the plants and animals within our country’s national parks have probably been documented by now, scientists still make surprising new discoveries in these iconic protected landscapes,” Isaac Lichter Marck, a plant taxonomist from the California Academy of Sciences and co-author of the study, says in the academy’s statement. Lichter Marck said O. biradiata belongs to the sunflower family, even though it doesn’t immediately resemble its typically radiant, sunburst-li ... Read full article.