{"id":103811,"date":"2026-05-17T14:03:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T08:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=103811"},"modified":"2026-05-18T17:03:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T11:33:11","slug":"sonerila-roxburghii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/sonerila-roxburghii\/","title":{"rendered":"Sonerila roxburghii"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Sonerila roxburghii Latest New<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Researchers recently identified a new species of flowering plant named Sonerila roxburghii from the ecologically sensitive Western Ghats in Kerala.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Sonerila roxburghii<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a new species of <\/span><b>flowering plant.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was discovered in the Mankulam and Kallar areas of the <\/span><b>Idukki district of Kerala, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">at elevations ranging between 1,380 and 1,480 metres above sea level.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The species has been <\/span><b>named in honour<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of renowned <\/span><b>botanist William Roxburgh <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8211; hailing from Scotland &#8211; often regarded as the <\/span><b>Father of Indian Botany<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and one of the earliest scientists to document the Sonerila genus.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It belongs to the Sonerila genus of the Melastomataceae (flowering plant) family.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It can be distinguished by several<\/span><b> unique morphological characteristics<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, including:<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Plant stems<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> growing up to<\/span><b> 60 cm in height.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Light pink flowers.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Smooth, flattened leaf surfaces <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">gradually<\/span><b> tapering toward the stem<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Adaptation to moist, high-altitude rocky habitats.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The species belongs to a group of <\/span><b>delicate tropical herbs <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">largely confined to the<\/span><b> higher reaches of the <a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/western-ghats\/\" target=\"_blank\">Western Ghats<\/a><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> biodiversity hotspot.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">has been placed in the <\/span><b>Critically Endangered category<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> due to its highly restricted distribution and fragile habitat conditions. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: <\/span><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.etvbharat.com\/en\/state\/new-plant-species-spnerila-roxburghi-enn26051603612\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">ETVB<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sonerila roxburghii is a newly discovered flowering plant species from Kerala\u2019s Idukki district, named after botanist William Roxburgh. Read more about Sonerila roxburghii, Morphological Characteristics, News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":103965,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[21,7579,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-103811","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-prelims-pointers","9":"tag-sonerila-roxburghii","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103811"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103857,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103811\/revisions\/103857"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}