Growing up a fan of Indiana Jones, the swashbuckling adventures of searching for archaeological treasures were embedded deeply into my youthful psyche. As a teenager, I would lose myself in National Geographic stories and photography, captivated by the tales of people going places and seeing things rarely experienced by the rest of the world. And when I started studying biology and ecology in earnest, learning the vast diversity of species on this planet—and trying to memorize their scientific names—I was a bit overwhelmed. But I think in the back of nearly every field biologist’s head is the idea that, “maybe I could discover something new, too.” That sense of curiosity and wonder is what motivates me, and many of my colleagues, in our daily work.

But in reality, it feels like almost everything new has been discovered. The “Age of Discovery” was over in the 1600’s. How, in this modern, instantly connected, fast-traveling age could there possibly be anything left undiscovered? Or, if there is, it’s probably a worm deep in an ocean trench or a beetle somewhere in a remote rainforest. Surely nothing big, and certainly not in our backyards. I’m routinely proven wrong, though—since I started teaching bat ecology 15 years ago, dozens of new species have been identified. One of our Master Naturalist graduates is verifying the local presence of a fungal species many have thought extinct. And less than five years ago, marine scientists identified an entirely new species of whale living just off our shores in the Gulf of Mexico.

So, you can imagine my excitement when my son and daughter’s University recently announced the discovery of a new plant species right on their campus. The University of the South (aka Sewanee) is tucked atop 13,000 acres on the Cumberland Plateau in south-central Tennessee. Students have endless opportunities to take regular hikes into the forest just steps from their classrooms. This living laboratory has resulted in lots of on-campus research opportunities, including several published books about field biology and botany.

The Sewanee Purple Phacelia, aka Sewanee Scorpionweed, is a small flower growing on shaded hillsides. Jonathan Evans, a biology professor and head of the campus herbarium, discovered the species after years of field observation. Known to science since the 1790’s, the native Phacelia bipinnatifida grew in groups of blue and purple flowers, long assumed to be within-species variation. After careful examination and genetic testing, Dr. Evans and his team realized there were two distinct species growing adjacent to one another.  The 5-petaled flower is a deep purple, with a white center and long purple stamens. It has broad pinnate leaflets and grows on a thick stem. The primary observable differences between the two species were the deeper purple (vs lighter purple/blue of P. bipinnatifida), along with longer stamens and differences in the basal leaves.

On campus, it grows in the deep shaded nooks of Shakerag Hollow, tucked into sandstone rock faces under dappled sunlight let in through the hardwoods. This shade keeps the soil moist, and the flowers grow along the trails and in broad cascading layers down the slopes. Dr. Evans and his team collected samples at similar geological areas in north Georgia and north Alabama, where the two species also grow side by side. Field observations showed the purple phacelia tended to grow better among “loose rock and boulders” while the blue phacelia preferred more open soil. Despite being pollinated by the same bees, the two flowers consistently grow in distinct patches by color. Exhaustive genetic testing showed they are two unique species, meaning they do not reproduce with one another. If you’re interested in the in-depth process of discerning a new species based on field collection, genetic analysis, and historical comparison, their paper is published in Castanea, the Southern Appalachian Botanical Society’s scientific journal.

Remarkably, the flower is purple and white—Sewanee’s school colors. The Sewanee Herbarium holds the species holotype, which is the “single specimen designated by the original describer of the form and available to those who want to verify the status of other specimens.” In the process of naming the plant for the town and University in which it was discovered, Evans and his team wanted to respect and utilize Traditional Ecological Knowledge. They reached out to linguistic experts with the Shawnee tribe, who first occupied this region of the Cumberland Plateau. Based on consultation with tribal elders, they concluded the word Sewanee (and likely Florida’s own Suwanee River) came from “the phrase “Ne ta se wi ne” (pronounced nee tay see wah nee” which translates to “I am lost.” I can vouch—it’s easy to get disoriented in those mountains; and perhaps poetically, appropriate for a species that was lost to science for nearly 240 years.

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