New flowering plant species discovered in SW China

Chinese researchers have discovered a new species of impatiens in southwest China's Guizhou Province and named it Impatiens beipanjiangensis.

The yellow flowers are described in a paper published in a recent edition of the journal PhytoKeys.

The species is named after the Beipanjiang River Basin in Panzhou City, where a team of botanists first found the specimen in October 2019 during a field survey, said Xu Jian, a member of the team and a researcher with the Guizhou Botanical Garden.

Botanists have so far located about 5,100 plants of the species mostly in the humid valley environment 1,300-1,500 meters above sea level.

The new species, which flowers in October and November, is similar to some other impatiens species in morphology but has significant differences in its sepals, pollen, seed, and other traits, according to researchers.