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LiveScience
LiveScience
Olivia Ferrari

'Woolly devil' flowers in Texas desert are the 1st new plant genus discovered in a US national park in almost 50 years

The wooly devil (Ovicula biradiata), a flowering plant that appears soft and fuzzy.

While walking in Big Bend National Park in Texas' Chihuahuan Desert, a park volunteer came across a fuzzy flower that turned out to be a never-before-seen species. The "woolly devil," as researchers have named it, is in the sunflower family and also represents a new genus.

This is the first time in nearly 50 years that a new plant genus has been described in a U.S. national park, since the discovery of the July gold shrub (Dedeckera eurekensis) in Death Valley National Park in 1976, according to a statement from the California Academy of Sciences.

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