''Saribus brevifolius'' is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

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 ...

in the genus ''

Saribus ''Saribus'' is a genus of palms (family Arecaceae), native to Southeast Asia, Papuasia and Pacific Islands. They are fan palms, the leaves with an armed petiole terminating in a rounded, costapalmate fan of numerous leaflets. ''Livistona'' is c ...

'', which has only been found in the

Kawe KAWE, virtual and VHF digital channel 9, is a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) member television station licensed to Bemidji, Minnesota, United States. The station is owned by Northern Minnesota Public Television, Inc. KAWE's studios are loca ...

and

Gag Island Gag Island is one of the Raja Ampat Islands in the Indonesian province of Southwest Papua. It is situated some 150 kilometres west of Sorong, the provincial capital. The island's population is approximately 450 living at Gambier Bay. This com ...

s in the archipelago of the

Raja Ampat Islands Raja Ampat, or the ''Four Kings'', is an archipelago located off the northwest tip of Bird's Head Peninsula on the island of New Guinea, in Indonesia's Southwest Papua province. It comprises over 1,500 small islands, cays, and shoals surrounding ...

, which lie off the north-west tip of the

Bird's Head Peninsula The Bird's Head Peninsula ( Indonesian: ''Kepala Burung'', nl, Vogelkop) or Doberai Peninsula (''Semenanjung Doberai''), is a large peninsula that makes up the northwest portion of the island of New Guinea, comprising the Indonesian provinces o ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

West Papua province West Papua ( id, Papua Barat), formerly Irian Jaya Barat (West Irian), is a province of Indonesia. It covers the two western peninsulas of the island of New Guinea, the eastern half of the Bird's Head Peninsula (or Doberai Peninsula) and the ...

. It was only discovered in 2002 during an expedition funded by

The Nature Conservancy The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is a global environmental organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. it works via affiliates or branches in 79 countries and territories, as well as across every state in the US. Founded in 1951, The Natu ...

. The palm grows along the coasts of these two tropical islands on small ridges composed of

ultrabasic Ultramafic rocks (also referred to as ultrabasic rocks, although the terms are not wholly equivalent) are igneous and meta-igneous rocks with a very low silica content (less than 45%), generally >18% MgO, high FeO, low potassium, and are compos ...

rock. It is a moderately-sized

fan palm Fan palm as a descriptive term can refer to any of several different kinds of palms ( Arecaceae) in various genera with leaves that are palmately lobed (rather than pinnately compound). Most are members of the subfamily Coryphoideae, though a f ...

with smallish and regularly segmented leaves and a smallish

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed o ...

in the crown. The inflorescence is not longer than the leaves, and split at its base into three main branches with one or more sub-inflorescences, these containing red flowers with pink

anther The stamen (plural ''stamina'' or ''stamens'') is the pollen-producing reproductive organ of a flower. Collectively the stamens form the androecium., p. 10 Morphology and terminology A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filam ...

s. The ends of ''S. brevifolius'' leaf segments are rigid and have a bifurcate cleft 1-4% of the segment length.

Taxonomy

''Saribus brevifolius'' was only relatively recently described as a new species. It was discovered in 2002 during a 'rapid ecological assessment' survey of the Raja Ampat Islands by

. 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 an international team of plant collectors on the Kawe Islands north-west off

Waigeo Waigeo is an island in Southwest Papua province of eastern Indonesia. The island is also known as Amberi, or Waigiu. It is the largest of the four main islands in the Raja Ampat Islands Raja Ampat, or the ''Four Kings'', is an archipelago loc ...

island. The collection number is JPM#8171. The collection number JPM#8224 is from the same population, and was collected at the same time: it is of the young fruit of the palm. The formal

species description A species description is a formal description of a newly discovered species, usually in the form of a scientific paper. Its purpose is to give a clear description of a new species of organism and explain how it differs from species that have be ...

was done by

John Leslie Dowe John Leslie Dowe is an Australian botanistIPNI: John Leslie Dowe
''The Interna ...

and Johanis P. Mogea in 2004. At the time the genus ''

'', which had been created in the 19th century, was not recognised, and the species was described as ''Livistona brevifolia''. Soon, however, new

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...

research comparing the DNA of different species of ''

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 ...

'' was published, which found that the genus was

polyphyletic A polyphyletic group is an assemblage of organisms or other evolving elements that is of mixed evolutionary origin. The term is often applied to groups that share similar features known as homoplasies, which are explained as a result of converg ...

. Thus the authors, Christine D. Bacon and William John Baker, resurrected, i.e. re-recognised, ''Saribus'', and the species was moved to this genus by them in 2011. The holotype is housed at the Herbarium Bogoriense in Indonesia. Isotypes were also deposited 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 the

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. An internationally important botanical research and education institution, it employs 1,100 ...

, the herbarium of the

University of Papua The University of Papua ( id, Universitas Papua) is a university in the province of West Papua, Indonesia. It has three campuses: Manokwari, Sorong, and Raja Ampat.The university teaches Economics, Forestry, Agriculture and Earth Sciences. His ...

Manokwari Manokwari is a coastal town and the capital of the Indonesian province of West Papua. It is one of only seven provincial capitals of Indonesia without a city status. It is also the administrative seat of Manokwari Regency. However, under pro ...

, the

National Herbarium of the Netherlands National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ce ...

Leiden Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration wit ...

and the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium of the

New York Botanical Garden The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) is a botanical garden at Bronx Park in the Bronx, New York City. Established in 1891, it is located on a site that contains a landscape with over one million living plants; the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, ...

Description

Habitus

This plant is a

hermaphrodite In reproductive biology, a hermaphrodite () is an organism that has both kinds of reproductive organs and can produce both gametes associated with male and female sexes. Many Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic groups of animals (mostly invertebrate ...

. This palm tree can become quite large, it grows up to in height, often shorter, with an at least trunk

diameter at breast height Diameter at breast height, or DBH, is a standard method of expressing the diameter of the trunk or bole of a standing tree. DBH is one of the most common dendrometric measurements. Tree trunks are measured at the height of an adult's breast, ...

, gradually becoming more slender towards the top, up to 10 cm in diameter. The palm grows with a solitary trunk. The leaf or petiole scars left behind on the trunk are slightly raised, and light grey in colour; the internodes between the scars are narrow. The stubs of the petioles are not persistent, i.e. they do not remain clinging onto the trunk for long. There are sixteen, sometimes up to forty, leaves in the roundish crown.

Leaf

It has smallish leaves for a ''Saribus'' palm. The leaf-sheath is fibrous. The petiole is some 110 cm in length. It is 29 to 42mm wide where it connects to the trunk, 12 to 13mm wide at the other end, slightly arching, and green. The upper, the

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