‘Martian’ plant finds new life thanks to Hollywood film

This 2015 photo provided by Bucknell University botanist Chris Martine works with her solanum watneyi plants at the university’s Rooke Science Center Greenhouse in Lewisburg, Pa. Scientists named the flowering Australian plant for Mark Watney, the fictional botanist played by Matt Damon in “The Martian.”

Brett Simpson/Bucknell University

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This 2015 photo provided by Bucknell University botanist Chris Martine works with her solanum watneyi plants at the university’s Rooke Science Center Greenhouse in Lewisburg, Pa. Scientists named the flowering Australian plant for Mark Watney, the fictional botanist played by Matt Damon in “The Martian.”

Brett Simpson/Bucknell University

NEW YORK – Matt Damon may not win the Oscar for best actor on Sunday, but the character he played in “The Martian” has gotten its own recognition.

In a paper published Thursday in the journal PhytoKeys, scientists named a flowering Australian plant for Mark Watney, the fictional botanist Damon portrayed.

The plant is dubbed solanum watneyi. It’s related to the potato, which Watney grew on Mars as he puzzled out how to survive being stranded.

The journal article demonstrates that the plant represents a distinct species. One author, Chris Martine of Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, said the name reflects the film’s demonstration that “through the scientific process there are ... lots of things we can still learn.”

Besides, she said, botanists don’t have many “blockbuster Hollywood space heroes.”