''Livistona endauensis'' is a species of

palm tree The Arecaceae is a family of perennial flowering plants in the monocot order Arecales. Their growth form can be climbers, shrubs, tree-like and stemless plants, all commonly known as palms. Those having a tree-like form are called palm trees ...

of the genus ''

Livistona ''Livistona'' is a genus of palms, the botanical family Arecaceae, native to southeastern and eastern Asia, Australasia, and the Horn of Africa. They are fan palms, the leaves with an armed petiole terminating in a rounded, costapalmate fan of ...

''. It is a tree

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

Peninsular Malaysia Peninsular Malaysia ( ms, Semenanjung Malaysia; Jawi: سمننجڠ مليسيا), or the States of Malaya ( ms, Negeri-negeri Tanah Melayu; Jawi: نڬري-نڬري تانه ملايو), also known as West Malaysia or the Malaysian Peninsula, ...

. It has been called Endau fan palm in English. In

Malay Malay may refer to: Languages * Malay language or Bahasa Melayu, a major Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore ** History of the Malay language, the Malay language from the 4th to the 14th century ** Indonesi ...

the palm is known as ''bertam'' or ''serdang Endau''.

Taxonomy

''Livistona endauensis'' was recognised as a new species relatively recently, being described in 1987 by John Dransfield and Khoon Meng Wong in an article published in the ''Malayan Nature Journal''. The

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...

was collected by Dransfield at 400 metres in altitude in 1977 on the ''Gunong Janing'' ('Janing mountain'), a mountain in the state of

Johor Johor (; ), also spelled as Johore, is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state of Malaysia in the south of the Malay Peninsula. Johor has land borders with the Malaysian states of Pahang to the north and Malacca and Negeri Sembilan ...

, and has the collection number JD#5089. It is housed at the

herbarium A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sheet of paper (called ...

at Kew Botanical Gardens, with an isotype kept at the herbarium at the

Forest Research Institute Malaysia The Forest Research Institute Malaysia (FRIM; Malay: ''Institut Penyelidikan Perhutanan Malaysia'') is a statutory agency of the Government of Malaysia, under the Ministry of Land, Water and Natural Resources (KATS). FRIM promotes sustainab ...

in Kepong.

Description

The seed is round and about 1 cm in diameter; the testa intrudes shallowly into its surface. The eophyll, which is the first fully-expanded leaf of a seedling palm, has five ribs.

Ecology

It is found in lowland open and closed forests. In the jungles where it occurs, it is found in a specific

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

on edaphically marginal, infertile soils on slopes, ridges and on hill tops. In such places it is a dominant part of the vegetation, but only in some areas. This is thought to very likely be due to being specialised on growing in sedimentary soil derived from

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

igneous rock Igneous rock (derived from the Latin word ''ignis'' meaning fire), or magmatic rock, is one of the three main The three types of rocks, rock types, the others being Sedimentary rock, sedimentary and metamorphic rock, metamorphic. Igneous rock ...

from the Jasin complex. Other often conspicuous trees associated with this habitat are the

dipterocarp Dipterocarpaceae is a family of 16 genera and about 695 known species of mainly tropical lowland rainforest trees. The family name, from the type genus ''Dipterocarpus'', is derived from Greek (''di'' = two, ''pteron'' = wing and ''karpos'' = fru ...

s ''

Cotylelobium lanceolatum ''Cotylelobium lanceolatum'' is a tree in the family Dipterocarpaceae. The specific epithet ''lanceolatum'' means "lance-like", referring to the shape of the leaf. Description ''Cotylelobium lanceolatum'' grows up to tall, with a trunk diameter ...

'' and '' Shorea blumutensis''. It is found in an area where there were still a relative number of wild rhinos in the 1970s.

Conservation

In 1998 it was assessed as a '

near threatened A near-threatened species is a species which has been categorized as "Near Threatened" (NT) by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as that may be vulnerable to endangerment in the near future, but it does not currently qualify fo ...

' species in the

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biol ...

, because its populations were severely fragmented, and there was a decline of mature individuals at the time. It was not evaluated in the '' Malaysia Plant Red List'', published 2010. A population is

protected Protection is any measure taken to guard a thing against damage caused by outside forces. Protection can be provided to physical objects, including organisms, to systems, and to intangible things like civil and political rights. Although th ...

in the

Endau-Rompin National Park Endau-Rompin National Park ( Malay: ''Taman Negara Endau-Rompin'') is a protected tropical rainforest in the southernmost prolongation of the Tenasserim Hills, Malaysia. It is south of the state of Pahang and northeast of Johor covering an area of ...

References

External links

Image of ''Livistona endauensis'' (INaturalist)
endauensis Endemic flora of Peninsular Malaysia Trees of Peninsular Malaysia Near threatened plants Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Taxa named by John Dransfield Plants described in 1987 {{Arecaceae-stub