Brachystelma is a genus of > 100 species in the Apocynaceae family found in Africa, Asia and Australia, with the majority found in South Africa. It includes many rare, endemic and threatened species, some of which have not been observed since the collection of their type specimens and have therefore been presumed extinct. Of the 38 species known from India, three are considered extinct: B. attenuatum, B. pauciflorum and B. parviflorum. Brachystelma parviflorum (Wight) Hook. f. was first collected by John Forbes Royle in 1835 from Doongie (Dungi, now in Hamirpur, Himachal Pradesh). On the basis of Royle's collection, Robert Wight described it under the genus Eriopetalum Wight. Later on, J.D. Hooker described this species under Brachystelma on the basis of the same collection and an illustration attached to the same herbarium sheet.
While working on the conservation of the endemic and threatened plants of the Western Himalaya, we collected a specimen of Brachystelma from Badhani village in Hamirpur district, Himachal Pradesh on 18 April 2020. The plant material was brought to the Botanical Survey of India, Dehradun, and in August 2020 it was identified as B. parviflorum confirming the rediscovery of this presumed extinct species after c. 186 years. As the new collection locality is c. 5 km from the type locality, the species appears to be a point endemic. We observed only a few individuals in a restricted locality, suggesting the species is rare and should probably be categorized as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List. Because of the lack of taxonomic details on the original protologue and the type specimen, further study of this species is required. We plan to explore the original location further, to gather data for a formal categorization using the IUCN Red List criteria.
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