''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 ...

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 {{Phyllanthaceae-stub