''Patersonia borneensis'' is a species of plant in the iris family

Iridaceae Iridaceae is a family of plants in order Asparagales, taking its name from the irises, meaning rainbow, referring to its many colours. There are 66 accepted genera with a total of c. 2244 species worldwide (Christenhusz & Byng 2016). It include ...

and is

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 ...

to a restricted area of Borneo. It is a tufted

perennial A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also wide ...

with many leaves and pale lavender to bluish-purple

tepal A tepal is one of the outer parts of a flower (collectively the perianth). The term is used when these parts cannot easily be classified as either sepals or petals. This may be because the parts of the perianth are undifferentiated (i.e. of very ...

s on a flowering stem shorter than the leaves.

Description

''Patersonia borneensis'' is a tufted, rhizome-forming perennial that typically grows to a height of and has many sword-shaped leaves wide. The flowering stem is shorter than the leaves, oval in cross-section, long and about in diameter with the sheath enclosing the flowers long. The outer tepals are pale lavender to bluish purple, egg-shaped and about long, and the

hypanthium In angiosperms, a hypanthium or floral cup is a structure where basal portions of the calyx, the corolla, and the stamens form a cup-shaped tube. It is sometimes called a floral tube, a term that is also used for corolla tube and calyx tube. It ...

tube is about long. Flowering mainly occurs from December to April.

Taxonomy and naming

''Patersonia borneensis'' was first described in 1894 by Otto Stapf in the ''

Journal of the Linnean Society, Botany The ''Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society'' is a scientific journal publishing original papers relating to the taxonomy of all plant groups and fungi, including anatomy, biosystematics, cytology, ecology, ethnobotany, electron microscopy, mor ...

'' from specimens collected on

Mount Kinabalu Mount Kinabalu ( ms, Gunung Kinabalu, Dusun language, Dusun: ''Gayo Ngaran or Nulu Nabalu'') is the highest mountain in Borneo and Malaysia. With an elevation of , it is List of islands by highest point, third-highest peak of an island on Eart ...

George Darby Haviland George Darby Haviland (1857–1901) was a British surgeon and naturalist. He was born at Warbleton, Sussex in England. He served as Director of the Raffles Museum in Singapore as well as being a medical officer in Sarawak and Curator of the Sa ...

in 1892.

Distribution and habitat

This patersonia is restricted to the Mount Kinabalu massif in

Sabah Sabah () is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state of Malaysia located in northern Borneo, in the region of East Malaysia. Sabah borders the Malaysian state of Sarawak to the southwest and the North Kalimantan province of Indone ...

, Malaysia where it grows at altitudes between .

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q109535777 borneensis Flora of Borneo Plants described in 1894 Taxa named by Otto Stapf