In 2024, Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew discovered 172 new plant and fungus species, including a ghost palm and three mushroom species, one of which has a fishy smell. With an estimated 2.5 million undiscovered fungi, many of which are endangered, Dr. Anna Bazzicalupo spoke to CGTN Europe and emphasized the importance of discovering new species for potential medical uses and building materials.
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00:00A ghostly palm, a toothy toadstool and foul-smelling fungi are in the top 10
00:06plant and fungus discoveries made in 2024. The weird and wonderful revelations
00:12were among 172 new species identified by Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew. Robin Dwyer
00:19spoke to Dr. Anna Bazzicaloppo, one of their researchers. The highlights
00:24include the ghost palm, which is a species that was initially found maybe
00:2890 years ago and suspected to be a new species but now has been formally
00:33described and the one that I've been involved with is actually a mushroom
00:37species, well three mushroom species, but my favorite is this little vressula.
00:43They're particular because they have this little fishy smell and they are
00:48just, I think, very beautiful creatures and that's why I like them so much.
00:54It seems incredible, to me at least, that new species are still being discovered
00:59even in heavily populated countries like the UK.
01:02Absolutely, so it's a humbling fact but it is a very true fact that we still
01:11need, it is a colossal thing that we need to undertake to describe plants and
01:17fungal life on the planet. We don't know many of them for especially for fungi we
01:24estimate that there's about 2.5 million fungi that we don't know about and a lot
01:29of them are actually in danger. So how important is it that we keep looking and
01:36finding a new species like these not just for their own sake and the
01:39scientific interest but potentially for what they could offer to us in terms of
01:43medicine and so on? You're hitting on the key points that Kew works on and so
01:52one of the things that is really important is that they may be endangered.
01:58So one of the things we really want to do is make sure that we know about them
02:02before they disappear. Second of all, there are uses that we can take
02:09out of them like discovery of new drugs or properties that have to do with
02:17building materials, for example. I'm talking about fungi and plants and
02:21that's why it's important to discover the new species not only because we want
02:26to describe the natural world and the organisms that we share the planet with.
02:31Do you think that saving and safeguarding plants gets enough attention
02:35perhaps compared with saving endangered animals for example? I work on mushrooms
02:41and I feel like mushrooms should get more attention but no, even plants need
02:45way more attention than they usually get and I think this is one of the great
02:50things about this institution, this tribe, really really puts a lot of effort
02:54into supporting the description of new species and inspiring people to be
03:01trained or to just care about plant and fungal life on the planet. So you
03:08were saying that you were particularly excited about these russia mushrooms if
03:11I've said that correctly. As the search for a new species continues, what would
03:16you most like to find or work on next? That's a fun question. I would love to
03:21see more species of russulas. So we have described about something like 800
03:28species described. We've recognized them but when we look at DNA from
03:36the world we estimate that there is maybe about 2,000 species so we're far
03:41off and they are beautiful mushrooms. But known for their unusual smell? Sometimes
03:48they can have funny smells like a fishy smell or sometimes they
03:55smell like old socks or flowers. So yes and the variety of colors of the
04:03caps is really really remarkable.