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Ammannia telanganensis, a freshwater flowering plant new to science, has been described from Telangana and named after the state.
The plant was recorded from the Amrabad Tiger Reserve in Nagarkurnool district, in the Nallamala hills of the Eastern Ghats.
It belongs to the family Lythraceae and is closest to Ammannia cordata and Ammannia prostrata, from which its bracts, flower arrangement and seed surface separate it.
The formal description appeared in the taxonomic journal Phytotaxa on 16 July 2026, co-authored by a scientist of the Botanical Survey of India's Deccan Regional Centre, Hyderabad.
Amrabad has the second-largest core area among India's 58 tiger reserves and was carved out of the Nagarjunsagar-Srisailam Tiger Reserve after the 2014 reorganisation of Andhra Pradesh.
Finding an unfamiliar plant in the field is not by itself a discovery. A plant becomes new to science only when a formal description is published in a peer-reviewed taxonomic journal under the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants: it must receive a Latin binomial, a type specimen must be designated and lodged in a recognised herbarium, and the description must carry a diagnosis setting out exactly how the plant differs from its closest known relatives. That is why Ammannia telanganensis is dated to its publication in Phytotaxa rather than to the day it was first collected, and why the description spells out its bracts, its cyme arrangement and its seed surface against Ammannia cordata and Ammannia prostrata.
Simple Analogy: A child exists from the day it is born, but the birth certificate is what puts it on the public record. Taxonomic publication is that certificate.
India's apex body for the taxonomic survey, documentation and conservation of plant resources; founded in 1890 and functioning under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. Its Deccan Regional Centre at Hyderabad covers Telangana and the neighbouring Deccan states.
Statutory body under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972; state governments notify tiger reserves under Section 38V of the Act on its recommendation
Amrabad Tiger Reserve lies in the Nallamala hills of the Eastern Ghats in Telangana, spread over Nagarkurnool and Nalgonda districts. Its core is 2,166.37 sq km and its buffer 445.02 sq km, which gives it the second-largest core area among India's tiger reserves; India had 58 tiger reserves as of 2026. Until the reorganisation of Andhra Pradesh in 2014 the tract formed part of the larger Nagarjunsagar-Srisailam Tiger Reserve, and it was constituted as Amrabad Tiger Reserve when Telangana was formed. The Krishna and the perennial streams rising within the reserve feed the Srisailam and Nagarjunasagar reservoirs. The Chenchu, a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group, are the principal forest-dwelling community of the reserve. Telangana has two tiger reserves: Amrabad and Kawal.
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The loosestrife family of flowering plants, which includes the genera Ammannia, Rotala and Lagerstroemia
A seed coat whose surface is folded in a brain-like pattern, one of the diagnostic characters of Ammannia telanganensis
A flower cluster borne on a distinct stalk, in which the central flower opens first
A sub-category of Scheduled Tribes identified for special support on the basis of pre-agricultural technology, low literacy, a stagnant or declining population and economic backwardness; the Chenchu of the Nallamala are one