A research team has described a new species to science, unique to the Maltese coastal landscape. This species has been called Limonium lanfrancoi.
The research team includes Ms Dorita Agius, a part-time PhD student at the Centre for Molecular Medicine & Biobanking and senior lecturer at G.F. Abela Junior College, Ms Maria Galea, a Masters student at Institute of Earth Systems, both from the University of Malta and Prof. Salvatore Brullo from the University of Catania. Professor Brullo has published extensively about Maltese flora and is considered an authority on the genus Limonium.
L. lanfrancoi (limonju ta' Lanfranco; published in the journal Phytotaxa) has been identified as a distinct species, new to science, that inhabits the rocky shores of Cominotto. Closely related to the Maltese species L. melitense (limonju ta’ Malta), it occupies a narrow strip of rock, where it thrives despite the salt, sun, and wind that it is exposed to every day. Furthermore, the paper acts as a compilation of the features of the 4 species of Limonium found on the Maltese islands.
The species has been dedicated to Mr Edwin Lanfranco, a Maltese researcher who advanced the local knowledge of plant species tremendously throughout his tenure.
The next step for this research is to study the genomic makeup of the plant, as plants that thrive in extreme environments such as the rocky coasts of Malta, can provide important insight and help us increase the hardiness of crop plants, as the changing climate becomes more extreme.
This will be carried out thanks to the newly-funded Research of Excellence project EPOM (REP-2023-033), which is providing the resources needed to advance the knowledge of our flora and help future food security.
This research work was carried out in accordance with environmental permits issued by the Environment & Resources Authority. These studies are enabled by research grants from the Malta Council for Science and Technology – Research of Excellence: EDGE (REP-2020-009) and EPOM (REP-2023-033) and IPAS+: CoL (IPAS-2022-005) and CoLII (IPAS-2023-014).