Undiscovered Country

Who says there's nothing new under the sun? Botanist Mats Thulin of Uppsala University in Sweden and his colleagues have discovered a new tree that covers hillsides across some 3,000 square miles (8,000 square kilometers) on the border between Ethiopia and Somalia, a region known as Ogaden. The new tree—dubbed Acacia fumosa—has delicate pink flowers but persists in a region that has been torn by strife for years. "There are certainly more new species of plant to be discovered in Ogaden and in other parts of the world, but the existence of another unknown tree dominating the vegetation over such a large area is highly unlikely," botanist David Mabberley of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, England, writes in this week'sScience.