Botanist Andrea Bianchi and local plant experts Aloyce Mwakisoma and his brother Ruben were exploring two tiny village forest reserves in the Udzungwa mountains in 2019, when they stumbled upon some imposing trees. Bianchi turned to the Mwakisoma brothers for advice, but even they had never seen this kind of tree before. “This was already quite a shiver-down-your-back moment because if they didn’t know [the species], it could have been something interesting,” the botanist recalls. The trees have now been identified as a new species, and named Tessmannia princeps. Some of them could be up to 3,000 years old. In total, Bianchi and his companions found around 100 mature T. princeps trees in the Boma la Mzinga and Uluti Village Land Forest Reserves. They say this small population and tiny distribution makes them vulnerable to extinction. The trees’ specific name – princeps – comes from the Latin word for “most eminent”, a reference to their crowns that protrude through the forest canopy as they grow up to 40 meters above the ground supported by large buttress roots. Other similar trees from the Tessmannia genus are more commonly associated with the rainforests of West Africa. Aloyce Mwakisoma with a Tessmannia princeps leaf sample. Image by Andrea Bianchi. The team found an individual tree that had fallen from natural causes and took samples to test the wood density. In a single centimeter of wood extracted from its core, Bianchi counted 12-15 rings. Trees normally deposit rings at a rate of one per…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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