In August 2019, Chinese botanists reported a find in one of the most thoroughly studied mountain regions of Sichuan. In the Wolong National Nature Reserve, a new species of snow lotus has been discovered — Saussurea balangshanensis, named after Mount Balang, where it was found. The plant lives in the alpine belt at an elevation of about 4400–4700 meters, among rocky scree. According to the researchers, it differs noticeably from known snow lotuses, including by its strong spicy fragrance.
The species was described by staff of the Kunming Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the description was published by Nordic Journal of Botany in 2019. The species' independence was substantiated in two ways: by comparing morphology and by analyzing a DNA region (ITS) that is widely used to determine kinship relationships between plants. The holotype, that is, the specimen by which the species was described, was collected on Mount Balang in 2017 and is kept in the KUN herbarium.
Several features help distinguish the new lotus. The upper part of the stems is swollen and hollow. The upper stem leaves are colored purple-red, their edges are dissected, and they partially clasp the inflorescence. The capitula are sessile and numerous, gathered into a dense inflorescence. It is precisely this combination of features that became the basis for considering the plant a separate species.
The main difficulty for the new lotus is its scarcity. The researchers and reserve staff concluded that fewer than 500 plants survive in the wild, and all of them are known from a single site on Mount Balang. Such a small colony, in the scientists' view, has acquired a distinctive genetic profile and has therefore become extremely vulnerable. The authors of the description propose classifying the species as "critically endangered" (CR) according to the criteria of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The habitat is located next to a tourist highway that could disturb the environment, and livestock grazing adds pressure. The reserve is already restricting economic activity near the plant's growing sites and plans further conservation measures. Exactly which measures will be taken has not yet been described in open sources.
The find adds touches to the picture of the diversity of the genus Saussurea. According to the Flora of China data cited in the article about the species, the country has 289 species of this genus — the largest in the local aster family — and 191 of them are endemic. In recent years, many new species have been described in the Hengduan Mountains, and Saussurea balangshanensis is one of the additions to this list.
Snow lotuses have long been valued in folk medicine and as a symbol of the high mountains. But the new species shows that even in well-studied regions there remain undescribed plants, and the rarest of them live in tiny patches.
