''Microtropis platyphylla'' is a plant in the family

Celastraceae The Celastraceae (staff-vine or bittersweet) are a family of 98 genera and 1,350 species of herbs, vines, shrubs and small trees, belonging to the order Celastrales. The great majority of the genera are tropical, with only ''Celastrus'' (the staf ...

. The

specific epithet In Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin gramm ...

''platyphylla'' means 'broad-leaved'.

Description

''Microtropis platyphylla'' grows as a shrub or tree up to tall, with a diameter of up to . The leathery leaves are

ovate Ovate may refer to: * Ovate (egg-shaped) leaves, tepals, or other botanical parts *Ovate, a type of prehistoric stone hand axe * Ovates, one of three ranks of membership in the Welsh Gorsedd * Vates or ovate, a term for ancient Celtic bards ...

lanceolate The following terms are used to describe leaf plant morphology, morphology in the description and taxonomy (biology), taxonomy of plants. Leaves may be simple (that is, the leaf blade or 'lamina' is undivided) or compound (that is, the leaf blade ...

elliptic In mathematics, an ellipse is a plane curve surrounding two focal points, such that for all points on the curve, the sum of the two distances to the focal points is a constant. It generalizes a circle, which is the special type of ellipse in ...

and measure up to long, and up to wide. The are in .

Distribution and habitat

''Microtropis platyphylla'' is native to

Borneo Borneo () is the List of islands by area, third-largest island in the world, with an area of , and population of 23,053,723 (2020 national censuses). Situated at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, it is one of the Greater Sunda ...

and the Philippines. Its Borneo habitat is in lowland to

montane forest Montane ecosystems are found on the slopes of mountains. The alpine climate in these regions strongly affects the ecosystem because temperatures lapse rate, fall as elevation increases, causing the ecosystem to stratify. This stratification is ...

s, to elevations of . Its Philippines habitat is in lowland forests.

Conservation

''Microtropis platyphylla'' has been assessed as

least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been evaluated and categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as not being a focus of wildlife conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wil ...

on the

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is an inventory of the global conservation status and extinction risk of biological ...

. It is threatened by conversion of its habitat for agriculture and urban development and also by logging and mining. The species is present in a number of protected areas, in Borneo:

Crocker Range National Park Crocker Range National Park () was established in 1984, although the area had previously been under protection as a forest reserve. It covers the north-south Crocker Range, of 1200-1800 metre mountains in Sabah, Malaysia. In the vicinity of pa ...

Maliau Basin Maliau Basin () or also Maliau Basin Conservation Area, is a region in Tongod District of Sabah, Malaysia, which represents a geological catchment surrounding the Maliau River. Located around the centre of Sabah in the Sandakan Division, it was ...

and

Tawau Hills National Park Tawau Hills Park, was established in 1979, primarily as a protection for the water catchment area of Tawau town, Sabah, Malaysia. It is located 24 kilometres from Tawau, and comprises 279.72 km² of lowland dipterocarp rainforest, surroun ...

; in the Philippines:

Upper Marikina River Basin Protected Landscape The Upper Marikina River Basin Protected Landscape is a protected area in the Province of Rizal in the Philippines, which forms the upper area of the drainage basin of the Marikina River. The term "Marikina Watershed" is sometimes used to speci ...

and Bulusan Volcano Natural Park.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q17251905 platyphylla Flora of Borneo Flora of the Philippines Plants described in 1915 Taxa named by Elmer Drew Merrill