''Peperomia rossii'' is a species of
plant
Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclu ...
in the
family
Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...
Piperaceae
The Piperaceae (), also known as the pepper family, are a large family of flowering plants. The group contains roughly 3,600 currently accepted species in 5 genera. The vast majority of species can be found within the two main genera: ''Piper'' ...
. It 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 else ...
to
Christmas Island
Christmas Island, officially the Territory of Christmas Island, is an Australian external territory comprising the island of the same name. It is located in the Indian Ocean, around south of Java and Sumatra and around north-west of the ...
, an
Australian territory in the northeastern
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by t ...
. Its
specific epithet honours the
Clunies-Ross family
The Clunies-Ross family were the original settlers of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, a small archipelago in the Indian Ocean. From 1827 to 1978, the family ruled the previously uninhabited islands as a private fiefdom, initially as ''terra nullius'' ...
which established the
Flying Fish Cove
Flying Fish Cove ( zh, 飛魚灣, ms, Pantai Ikan Terbang) is the capital city and main settlement of Australia's Christmas Island. Although it was originally named after British survey-ship '' Flying-Fish'', many maps simply label it "The Set ...
settlement on Christmas Island in 1888.
[Flora of Australia Online.]
Description
''Peperomia rossii'' is an
epiphytic
An epiphyte is an organism that grows on the surface of a plant and derives its moisture and nutrients from the air, rain, water (in marine environments) or from debris accumulating around it. The plants on which epiphytes grow are called phoroph ...
herb growing to about 50–100 mm in height. It is
glabrous
Glabrousness (from the Latin '' glaber'' meaning "bald", "hairless", "shaved", "smooth") is the technical term for a lack of hair, down, setae, trichomes or other such covering. A glabrous surface may be a natural characteristic of all or part of ...
, with creeping stems, rooting at the nodes, with an erect flowering shoot. The
leaves are usually opposite, elliptic, entire, and 10–30 mm long. It carries many flowers. The fruit is a round berry, less than 1 mm long.
[
]
Status and conservation
The plant is known only from the type collection made in 1898, and may be extinct.[Cochrane (2002).]
References
Notes
Sources
*
*
*
rossii
Endemic flora of Christmas Island
Plants described in 1900
Taxa named by Edmund Gilbert Baker
{{Piperales-stub