Close up view of “Wooly Devil.”
Scientists who want to learn more about a tiny flower recently discovered in West Texas hope it will bloom again in a couple of weeks after rain finally falls in the area.
Dubbed the wooly devil, the flower with furry leaves, purplish-striped petals and pops of yellow is a new genus and species in the same family as sunflowers and daisies: Asteraceae. It was discovered last year in Big Bend National Park, a part of the Texas Chihuahuan desert known for its rugged terrain that includes canyons and mountains along the border with Mexico.
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WATCH HERE“There’s a lot to learn with this species, so they’re really just getting started,” said Carolyn Whiting, a Big Bend botanist.
Whiting said scientists are hopeful the flowers will bloom again after rain fell on the drought-stricken park last week. This will give them the opportunity to learn more, including when the plants germinate.
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SIGN UP The flower was discovered in March 2024. Park volunteer Deb Manley and a park ranger were hiking in a remote area when they saw a patch of flowers smaller than a quarter and close to the ground.
“We stopped and took some photos and neither one of us had any idea,” Manley said. “I could get it to family but I couldn’t figure out any more than that. So we took photos and moved on, not realizing we had found a new genus.”
When Manley got back from the hike, she started researching what the flower could be. She soon found that not only was she stumped, but others were too. Her post about the flower on iNaturalist, an online platform for nature enthusiasts, “caused a stir,” said Isaac Lichter Marck, a researcher at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.
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A. Michael Powell, curator and director of the herbarium at Sul Ross State University in Alpine, said when Manley contacted him about the flower, he immediately thought it was something new.
“It wasn’t anything I’d seen before,” said Powell, who has extensively studied the region.
A few weeks after the discovery, when a team went to collect the flower samples, they had already begun to wither away.
“We really got out there just in the nick of time before the specimens would have been completely dried up,” Whiting said.
The discovery of the flower was announced last month. The California Academy of Sciences said the flower is a member of the sunflower family and is the first new plant genus and species discovered in a U.S. national park in nearly 50 years.
Lichter Marck said they were able to extract DNA from the flower but that there's still a lot to learn. They don’t know yet how it reproduces or what potential uses it might have. They also need to determine if it’s endangered.
The wooly devil's official name — Ovicula biradiata — takes inspiration from its appearance: Ovicula, which means tiny sheep, is a nod to the hairs that cover its leaves; while biradiata, or bi-radial, refers to its two striped petals.
Kelsey Wogan, environmental lab manager at Sul Ross State University, said she’s excited to discover if the wooly devil can be found in other places and its range.
Whiting said the park is so well-studied that finding a new species was a surprise.
“The fact that there’s still species out there that had slipped under the radar is pretty remarkable,” she said.
Wogan said part of the excitement about the flower's discovery is that it shows “there’s still new and undescribed things out there.”
“It’s the great reminder to keep your eyes open," she said, "and if you don’t know what something is, it might be completely new.”
