''Sauropus assimilis'' is an extremely rare species of plant in the family
Phyllanthaceae
Phyllanthaceae is a family of flowering plants in the eudicot order Malpighiales. It is most closely related to the family Picrodendraceae.Kenneth J. Wurdack and Charles C. Davis. 2009. "Malpighiales phylogenetics: Gaining ground on one of the ...
. It is a
tree
In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are ...
growing in wet
evergreen
In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has foliage that remains green and functional through more than one growing season. This also pertains to plants that retain their foliage only in warm climates, and contrasts with deciduous plants, which ...
forests in
lowland
Upland and lowland are conditional descriptions of a plain based on elevation above sea level. In studies of the ecology of freshwater rivers, habitats are classified as upland or lowland.
Definitions
Upland and lowland are portions of ...
s.
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 southwestern
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
, and only known from the
Sinharaja Biosphere Reserve there, evidence of its existence was last catalogued before 1991 (in a survey held between 1991 and 1996 by the National Conservation Review of Sri Lanka), and it has not been found since then. It may since have become
extinct
Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...
.
''Sauropus assimilis'' was first collected for scientific examination and classification from
Allagalla,
in the
Central Province of Sri Lanka, at an elevation of 3000 feet, by botanist
George Henry Kendrick Thwaites
George Henry Kendrick Thwaites (9 July 1812, Bristol – 11 September 1882, Kandy) was an English botanist and entomologist.
Thwaites was initially an accountant and studied botany during his spare time. He was interested particularly in the lo ...
.
[ This high elevation, when compared with where it has been found more recently, would seem to indicate that the historic range of ''S. assimilis'' is much broader than it stands today. Thwaites described and published this species for the first time in 1861.][ The ]specific epithet
In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...
"''assimilis''" is Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, meaning "like" or "similar to": in Thwaites text,[ he indicates that the overall appearance of ''S. assimilis'' is similar to that of ''S. gardneriana'' (now known as ''S. gardnerianus'', and considered to be synonymous with '' S. androgynus'').]
References
assimilis
Plants described in 1861
Flora of Sri Lanka
Critically endangered plants
Taxonomy articles created by Polbot
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