“A group of researchers from the University of Milan, the University of Siena and the Flora Alpina Bergamasca (FAB) group have discovered a new species of plant, which grows in a restricted area of the Lombardy Pre-Alps. The species belongs to the genus Campanula and has been named Campanula bergomensis, or of Bergamo, after the province whose exclusive”. [1]

When I first came across such news, I was almost shocked. I wondered how it was possible that species unknown to us could still exist even in the 21st century, in the age of advanced information technology, Industry 4.0, and artificial intelligence. Or rather, I thought this might be true for the endless, unexplored spaces of the Amazon rainforest or the African plains. But never would I have expected that something unknown and nameless was still present before our eyes, in the mountains that hundreds of thousands of people visit each year.

Primula recubariensis is a small purple flower, discovered (or rather, identified) only in 1997. It has a very limited range, covering only 7 square kilometers in the Vicentine Pre-Alps, growing directly attached to the limestone rocks and in these mountains’ shady, moist ravines. And its very specific epithet already identifies its origin: the primrose of Recoaro [2].

It is fascinating to think how this tiny, perhaps insignificant resin-scented flower can actually live only here in the whole world, clinging to a few rocks, virtually unscathed by any threat except the passage of a few sporadic climbers.

A similar story is that of Alchemilla gretae-gregorii.  An entirely new species, identified with certainty only in 2019. Like the Recoaro Primrose, it too has a range limited to about ten kilometers around Folgaria in southern Trentino. Unlike Primula, however, which can afford the luxury of living almost undisturbed on the vertical cliffs of the Dolomites, this small greenish seedling is typical of mowing meadows and pastures at mid-altitude. Environments that by their nature are constantly subject to change, whether natural or anthropogenic. Moreover, if for Primula the intrinsic difficulties in identification were related to accessing individuals and comparing them to other species (ed. note, we are in the late 1990s, without digital botanical archives of the world flora and with difficulties even in finding information on other rare endemic species), for Alchemilla the difficulty lies precisely in the heterogeneity of the genus to which it belongs. In fact, more than 450 species of Alchemilla are known at the European level alone, including 100 in Italy. These species are all very similar, with few identifying characters that are difficult to compare [3].

Finally, how can we not mention Gentiana brentae, steno-endemism (i.e., a species that lives in a narrow range) of the Brenta Dolomites and the Adamello Group, on the border between the provinces of Trento and Brescia. This species is also of recent identification (2009) and represents to date a symbol of botanical research in northern Italy. The species had been collected and catalogued since 1800 but was always confused with other species of Gentiana vegetating in the area. On the other hand, recent analysis carried out both in the field and on historical herbarium specimens has shown how the species is indeed new to science, showing different characters limited to only those individuals in the range. This discovery is even more important not only because of the identification of a new species per se but also because this one turns out to have been made in an area already extensively beaten and studied for centuries by dozens of botanists [4]. No longer, then, difficulty in accessing the site and finding specimens as with Primula, nor possible confusions with other numerous similar species, as with Alchemilla, but rather an age-old oversight – under everyone’s eyes – that needed only a little attention.

All of this shows us how nature still turns out to be unknown to us humans in so many of its parts. This anthropic tendency of ours to classify, name, list, and recognize things drives us to a continuous and unceasing struggle against a nature that has no name, no category, and simply does what is most important, essential, and primordial: living.

We should not be surprised, then, that we still do not know (perhaps not even broadly) how many species inhabit our planet. Estimates speak of about 8.7 million species on the globe, 2.2 of which are marine. After nearly two and a half centuries of taxonomic classification, about 1.2 million have been catalogued. As a result, about 86 percent of species are still waiting to be identified [5]. Who knows, maybe on our next walk, we might come across a new species. Seeing the numbers, the odds are not so remote.