Kairoa endressiana
Family Monimiaceae. An understory shrub discovered during the Porgera II RAP was identified as a new Faika, a genus restricted to New Guinea and previously represented by a single species. However DNA analysis showed that the new plant was also related to a second genus (Kairoa) similarly consisting of just one species.
These findings led to the elimination of Faika as a separate genus and its transfer to Kairoa, as well as the description of Kairoa endressiana as a plant new to science.
Scientific name
Kairoa endressiana
Where
On a RAP survey at the headwaters of the Strickland River, in the Southern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea.
When
July 16, 2008
Field Notes
Known only from two collections made during the survey.
Finders
Wayne Takeuchi (Arnold Arboretum and Harvard University Herbaria) and Demas Ama (PNG Forest Research Institute).
Material for Kairoa endressiana, figs 2, 3 first appeared in an article titled A PHYLOGENY AND REVISED CIRCUMSCRIPTION FOR KAIROA (MONIMIACEAE), WITH THE DESCRIPTION OF A NEW SPECIES FROM PAPUA NEW GUINEA in Harvard Papers in Botany Volume 14, number 1 and is reprinted here with permission of the editors of Harvard Papers in Botany.