New Jersey wildflower identified as unique species in Pine Barrens discovery

A researcher discovered a ‘rare’ wildflower that only grows in New Jersey after studying a plant that everyone assumed to belong to another species. In the Pine Barrens region of southern New Jersey, Temple University researcher Sasha Eisenman helped identify the long mistaken plant as unique to the state. The discovery could help protect it for years to come.

In research published in Phytotaxa, Eisenman confirmed the plant is distinct from its closest known relatives, and formally named it Triantha × novacaesariensis, a Latinization of New Jersey. “It’s very special, very rare and only exists in this one place in the entire world,” said Eisenman, an associate professor in horticulture.

That place is part of what makes the finding so compelling. Stretching across nearly a million acres in southern New Jersey, the Pine Barrens National Reserve is one of the region’s most ecologically distinctive landscapes, home to rare habitats and plant life. Eisenman said the discovery is especially striking because the northeastern United States has been studied so extensively.

“To really identify something as new and unique is pretty rare these days,” he said. For years, the plant had been identified as Triantha racemosa, a species typically found much farther south or suspected to be a hybrid of Triantha racemosa and Triantha glutinosa. It features clusters of thin, strap-like leaves and white 6-petaled flowers that rise above the surrounding grasses.