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Buellia maharajensis, a new saxicolous (rock-dwelling) lichen species, has been described from Mathikettan Shola National Park in Idukki district, Kerala, reported on 8 September 2026.
It was recorded at an elevation of about 1,351 metres and named in tribute to Maharaja's College, Ernakulam, on its 150th anniversary.
The description, by a five-member team from Maharaja's College, the KSCSTE-Kerala Forest Research Institute and CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow, appeared in the botany journal Taiwania.
The wider biodiversity survey in the park documented about 250 lichen species, including 60 recorded for the first time in Kerala and 15 new records for India.
Mathikettan Shola was notified as a national park on 21 November 2003 and covers 12.82 sq km in the Cardamom Hills of the southern Western Ghats.
A lichen is not one organism. It is a symbiotic association between a fungus and a photosynthetic partner - usually an alga or a cyanobacterium. Saxicolous lichens are those that grow directly on rock surfaces, as against bark, soil or leaves.
Simple Analogy: A fungus providing the house and an alga paying rent in sugar.
The statute under which protected areas in India, including national parks such as Mathikettan Shola, are constituted and governed. Mathikettan Shola was notified under this framework on 21 November 2003.
State forestry research institute under the Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment (KSCSTE); part of the five-member research team.
CSIR laboratory for plant sciences and India's principal centre for lichen taxonomy; part of the research team.
The species is named in its tribute, on its 150th anniversary; its researchers led the team.
Mathikettan Shola National Park lies near Santhanpara in Udumbanchola taluk, Idukki district, in the north-eastern part of the Cardamom Hills in the southern Western Ghats. Its forest patches are among the last remnants of the original forests of the Cardamom Hill Reserve. Shola forests are montane evergreen forests found in the high-altitude valleys of the southern Western Ghats, interspersed with grassland.
GS Paper 3 > Environment > Biodiversity and protected areas
General Awareness > Environment and Ecology
In which of the following regions of India are you most likely to come across the 'Great Indian Hornbill' in its natural habitat?
Answer: Western Ghats
From the ecological point of view, which one of the following assumes importance in being a good link between the Eastern Ghats and the Western Ghats?
Answer: Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve
Hubbardia heptaneuron, which has become endangered, is a species of which of the following?
Answer: Grass
The Western Ghats are a recognized biodiversity hotspot. Which of the following is currently considered the most significant threat to its endemic species, beyond general habitat loss?
Answer: Infrastructure development projects (e.g., roads, dams, mining).
'Gadgil Committee Report' and 'Kasturirangan Committee Report', sometimes seen in the news, are related to
Answer: protection of Western Ghats
Growing directly on rock surfaces. Lichens are also classed as corticolous (on bark) or terricolous (on soil) by the surface they occupy.
Montane evergreen forest confined to sheltered high-altitude valleys of the southern Western Ghats, usually alternating with rolling grassland.
Lichen diversity is widely used as an indicator of habitat quality and air conditions, because many species disappear where air pollution rises.