Nymphaea Tertragonolobes, the rare and delicate lotus specie is found only in a small pond owned by a private individual at Smit some 10 kms from the State capital and nowhere else in the world.
There are just four to five of these rare plants in the pond and these may disappear forever unless the government take steps, North Eastern Hill University (NEHU) Vice Chancellor and a renowned botanist Pramod Tandon informed.
A team of research scholars from NEHU’s Botany department first stumbled upon this rare Lotus variety during their study in 1985.
During those years about 15 to 20 plants would bloom each summer. However, with every passing year the size of the pond has reduced due to neglect and encroachment squeezing this rare plant’s habitat.
An individual has bought the area and is trying to save this rare specie, but if the government does not intervene in its conservation it is unlikely to survive for long, Tandon observed.
Although botanists did try to culture the plant in the laboratory but it did not yield satisfactory results. Nymphaea Tertragonolobes is very delicate and is susceptible to diseases and so the experiment to culture it in the laboratory was not successful, the Vice Chancellor said.
The only alternative is for the government to intervene and save this flower by increasing its habitat and the Forest department must carry out research work to save such endangered plant species, Tandon stated.
Tandon said he was aware that the North Eastern Council sometimes back sanctioned funds to the Forest department to set up a plant tissue culture laboratory. “I don’t know if the lab was ever set up”, he added.
Meanwhile, NEHU has successfully micro-propagated (to propagate plants through modern plant tissue culture) two endangered plant species the Nepenthes Khasiana the carnivorous Pitcher plant found in Meghalaya and Mantesia Wengeri the State flower of Mizoram with 100 per cent success, Tandon added.