A new species of wild brinjal has been discovered from one of the remote islands of the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago by a scientist from the Botanical Survey of India (BSI).

The species, Solanum pandeyi, was recorded in the evergreen forest of Middle Andaman by Lal Ji Singh, head of the BSI Andaman and Nicobar regional centre. Dr. Singh said the species was found growing in the open along the forest edges and was locally known as wild orange eggplant.

The botanist said he recorded the ethnobotanical information on Solanum pandeyi from locals residing in the distributional range and natural habitat of this species.

“The plant was used by an indigenous Negrito tribe, Great Andamanese, for food and medicinal purposes. Most seeds and roots are used to treat tooth infection. Ripe fruit with jaggery (a natural unrefined sugar), chilli, garlic, ginger, and salt are used to make sour-sweet sauce by the Ranchi and Bengali settler community of the island,” Dr. Singh said.

While the species is marked by morphological features such as the presence or absence of spines, stellate or non-stellate hairs, a phylogenetic analysis was done to confirm the identity of this new species and determine its position in relation to the main clades recognised in the genus Solanum. The genetic analysis of Solanum pandeyi was done by Shruti Kasana from University of Delhi.

The details of the discovery were published in a paper titled ‘A New Species of Solanum L. (Solanaceae) From the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India: Taxonomic and Phylogenetic Insights’, in an international peer-reviewed journal Feddes Repertorium.

“The ethnobotanical and genetic potentials of S. pandeyi are clearly visible from its usage by local people and indicate that it has all the qualities of a good genetic resource. In future, this species might be a choice of genetic base for plant breeders to develop high-yielding, disease-resistant varieties of brinjal crop,” the paper said.

Dr. Singh said there are about 1,250 species of genus Solanum recorded globally of which around 49 species are wild brinjals from India. The conservation status of the species accessed as Data Deficient.

The species Solanum pandeyi is named after Arun Kumar Pandey, professor, Department of Botany, University of Delhi, for his significant contributions to plant systematics

Dr. Singh said the Andaman group of islands remains a biological hotspot. The region had revealed to him about 28 new species of plants as new to science, including wild relatives of banana and ginger over the past three decades, he said.