On April 20, 2026, the Department of Science and Technology released findings of a major palaeobotanical study led by the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences (BSIP) in Lucknow, an autonomous institute of the DST, that establishes India as a primary cradle of Jamun (genus Syzygium) evolution. Researchers from BSIP, in collaboration with the Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR) and Tribhuvan University, recovered 11 well-preserved fossil leaves of Syzygium from Early Miocene deposits about 20 million years old in the Kasauli Formation of Himachal Pradesh, naming the new species Syzygium paleosalicifolium. Combining the new fossil record with a reinvestigation of earlier Indian fossil records, the team concluded that Syzygium had an East Gondwanan origin dating to roughly 80 million years ago and that the genus was already present on the Indian plate by the Early Eocene 55 million years ago, well before the long-held theory that Jamun originated in Australia or Southeast Asia. The study, published in the Journal of Palaeogeography under DOI 10.1016 j.jop.2026.100343 with Dr. Gaurav Srivastava as the lead author, reshapes the evolutionary timeline of one of Indias most culturally and economically important fruit trees and underlines India role in the diversification of Asian flora. The findings carry direct implications for biodiversity conservation, climate-resilience strategies for agroforestry and the policy framing of indigenous fruit tree corridors under the National Mission on Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem.