On the rolling slopes of the Western Ghats, amid the evergreen forests of Tamil Nadu, botanists came across a plant that fit no familiar scheme. Its flowers are solitary and grow straight from the leaf axils on drooping stems. The corolla is dark brownish-purple with a whitish tinge, the central corona lacks pubescence, and the seeds reach 14 millimetres in length, which is unusually large for this genus. By the combination of traits, the find is closest to Ceropegia annamacharyae, while its narrow leaves and overall appearance resemble Ceropegia swarupa. The name Ceropegia tamilnaduensis was given in honour of the state where the first specimens were collected.
The discovery was made by specialists of the Botanical Survey of India during a routine floristic expedition in the Nellai Sanctuary. The plant was found at an altitude of about 380 metres above sea level, on a slope by a stream, surrounded by dense evergreen forest. More than fifty flowering individuals looked robust and thriving, and it was precisely this abundance that quickly drew the researchers' attention. The description of the new species was published in the Kew Bulletin, an international peer-reviewed journal on the taxonomy and conservation of vascular plants, in 2026. The authors of the work are Arumugam Senniappan, Sudeb Bera and Karthigeyan Kaliyamurthy.
The Nellai Sanctuary lies in the Western Ghats, one of the global biodiversity hotspots, which together with Sri Lanka is counted among the richest natural regions in the world. The range is especially rich in endemics. In the northern part of the Western Ghats, the genus Ceropegia numbers 17 endemic species, more than any other genus among the 159 strictly endemic species of flowering plants in this area. Overall in India the genus is represented by 61 taxa, which are distributed across seven sections. This picture was brought together by Kambale and Yadav in their revision of 2019, and of the 61 taxa, 44 (72%) are endemic. In other words, the new species did not appear in a void, but in one of the densest "nests" of diversity of this genus. Protected areas preserve forests and grassland communities, and it is precisely there that rare species can remain unnoticed for a long time. How easily such plants escape attention is shown by the story of Ceropegia maculata: in Tamil Nadu it was rediscovered 154 years after its first description.
Outwardly the plant resembles a perennial herbaceous form with narrow leaves and drooping stems. The flowers, emerging straight from the leaf axils, together with the other traits make it recognisable to a specialist. Comparison with herbarium specimens and the world literature confirmed that what the researchers had before them was indeed a new taxon, and not a variant of an already known species.
Its conservation status has so far been determined as "Data Deficient" according to IUCN criteria. This is not a sign of safety but a sign of a gap: it is impossible to assess the threat without data on the range and abundance. More than fifty individuals were found within the sanctuary, but the size of the population and the actual boundaries of the range are still unknown, and it is precisely these that further field work must establish. For the flora of the region such a situation is not uncommon. According to the list of endemic species of the northern part of the range for 2014, 34 taxa are known only from type collections and have not been found again, despite many years of field searches.
Every such discovery is a reminder that even in long-studied regions there remain blank spots, and they can be filled in only where nature can develop undisturbed and sanctuaries continue to do their work.
