An ISU alumnus recently discovered a new plant species and named it after a former ISU professor of botany.

“It is a discovery in one sense and it isn’t in another,” said Thomas Lammers, herbarium curator at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. “I wasn’t the person out in the field who discovered the plant growing naturally, but I did realize that it was a previously unidentified species that needed a name.”

Lammers named the plant species in honor of the late George Knaphus, who was a botany professor at Iowa State.

There is still a great deal to be learned about the Earth’s plants, Lammers said.

“When it comes to plants, we really have not yet begun to scratch the surface in discovering all the different species,” he said.

He said there are about 300,000 known plant species, but there may be that many unidentified species as well.

Lammers also said thousands of new species are discovered each year.

“In the last 10 years, I have found that about 6 percent of the specimens that have been sent to me are things that have not been described before,” he said.

Burmeistera Knaphusii Lammers, the official name of Lammers’ newly named plant, is not his first plant that he has named.

“I’ve actually done somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 to 45 species in the last 10 years,” he said.

Identifying and naming a new species can be time-consuming.

First, a botanist must establish that the specimen has never been described or named before.

After establishing that the specimen is new, a botanist must write a scientific paper documenting the ways in which the species differs from similar specimens. When the paper is published in a recognized scientific journal, the name becomes recognized as the name of the new plant.

Lammers chose to honor Knaphus because of the influence Knaphus had in directing Lammers’ career path.

Lynn Clark, professor of botany, said Knaphus served as an academic adviser in addition to teaching botany classes at Iowa State. He received recognition from the university and the state for his contributions.

“Knaphus was a really excellent adviser,” Lammers said. “I sometimes wonder if I could have finished up my bachelor’s degree if it hadn’t been for him.”