Endangered herb lepidagathis clavata rediscovered after 166 years in Western Ghats

Keri: Existence of the endemic and threatened flowering herb, lepidagathis clavata, was first recorded 166 years ago from the Chorla plateau. The plant has been listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

However, much remains to be researched about the herb, which flowers only once in seven years. The herb was rediscovered only recently by a team of dedicated researchers after being first reported in 1851.


Now, a research paper on lepidagathis clavata — authored by Rutuja Kolte-Khanolkar, along with her team, Rahul Khanolkar, Sharad Kambale, Prabha Pillai, Gunadayalan Gnanasekaran, and Malapathi Janarthanam—has been published in the Journal of Threatened Taxa in its Dec 26, 2025 issue.

The species, lepidagathis clavata, is found on the rocky plateaus of the Western Ghats and is locally known as Koch.

It was first discovered in 1851 by N A Dalzell on the Chorla plateau. Nearly 166 years later, the species was rediscovered by Kolte, a doctoral researcher, on the plateaus of Chaukul in Sindhudurg district.

The researchers have found that the species does not flower annually and exhibits monocarpic plietesial behaviour, similar to species such as karvi (strobilanthes).

A defining feature of monocarpic plietesial species is that all individuals at a given location flower simultaneously, and after seed maturation, the plants die.

New plants then grow from the seeds and flower only after reaching full maturity.

According to the researchers, all Koch plants at Chaukul flowered in Nov 2016. During the monsoon of 2017, the plants died, following which new seedlings emerged.

After a gap of seven years, the plants flowered again in Nov 2024.

Researchers noted that further detailed studies and continuous long-term monitoring are required to draw more definitive conclusions about the life cycle, ecological importance, and conservation needs of the species, which remains poorly understood.