A NEW tree species has been named after Leonardo DiCaprio as a tribute to the Hollywood star’s anti-logging campaigning, London’s Royal Botanic Gardens announced Thursday. The evergreen with large yellowish-green flowers, which was found in Cameroon’s Ebo forest, was the first new species to be officially named in 2022 by botanists from the renowned gardens in the London borough of Kew. The tree’s scientific name — Uvariopsis dicaprio — recognizes the 47-year-old American actor’s work to prevent logging in the endangered forest, where the only known specimen of the tree was found growing. The Hollywood A-lister campaigned on social media after Cameroon granted permission for logging in the pristine wildlife reserve in 2020. The concession was canceled months later by Cameroon’s President Paul Biya, “surely partly due to his support,” the scientists wrote in PeerJ online journal, referring to DiCaprio. The Uvariopsis dicaprio has been provisionally listed as critically endangered. The sole known specimen, which measures 4m high and has only male flowers, was discovered next to a footpath, the scientists said. DiCaprio, best known for films such as “Titanic” (1997) and “The Wolf of Wall Street” (2013), currently stars as an astronomer in the Netflix comedy “Don’t Look Up,” about scientists trying to draw the world’s attention to a comet heading towards Earth. He himself has nevertheless been criticized for flying in a private jet to pick up an environmental award in 2016. Scientists at Kew have been naming new species of plants and fungi for more than 150 years. It is not unusual for species to be named after celebrities. A Caribbean crustacean parasite is named after late reggae star Bob Marley, an Australian horse fly is named after American singer Beyonce and a frog has been named after Britain’s Prince Charles. (SD-Agencies) | 