''Rosselia'' is a genus of

plant Plants are the eukaryotes that form the Kingdom (biology), kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly Photosynthesis, photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with c ...

s in the family

Burseraceae The Burseraceae are a moderate-sized family of 17-19 genera and about 540 species of woody flowering plants. The actual numbers given in taxonomic sources differ according to taxonomic revision at the time of writing. The Burseraceae are also ...

. The sole species is ''Rosselia bracteata'',

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only 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 foun ...

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

. It is a tree and grows primarily in the wet tropical biome(s). Both the genus and the species were

circumscribed In geometry, a circumscribed circle for a set of points is a circle passing through each of them. Such a circle is said to ''circumscribe'' the points or a polygon formed from them; such a polygon is said to be ''inscribed'' in the circle. * Circum ...

Lewis Leonard Forman Lewis Leonard Forman (29 June 1929 – 16 June 1998) was a British botanist, born in London. He was an expert on spermatophytes, particularly Menispermaceae, and specialised in the plants of Southeast Asia. He graduated from the University of Lond ...

in Kew Bull. vol.49 on page 603 in 1994. The genus name of ''Rosselia'' is named after

Rossel Island Rossel Island (named after de Rossel, a senior officer on the French expedition of d'Entrecasteaux, 1791-1793; also known as Yela) is the easternmost island of the Louisiade Archipelago, within the Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea. Tree Isl ...

which was named in honour of Elisabeth Paul Eduard de Rossel (1765–1829), French astronomer and Master-at-arms. He was on the

frigate A frigate () is a type of warship. In different eras, the roles and capabilities of ships classified as frigates have varied. The name frigate in the 17th to early 18th centuries was given to any full-rigged ship built for speed and maneuvera ...

La Recherche ''La Recherche'' is a monthly French language popular science magazine covering recent scientific news. It is published by the Société d'éditions scientifiques (the ''Scientific Publishing Group''), a subsidiary of Financière Tallandier. Tallan ...

' with Joseph Antoine Raymond Bruny d'Entrecasteaux on the search for the missing La Pérouse expedition, which was later written in 1809.

References

Burseraceae Burseraceae genera Flora of Papua New Guinea Vulnerable plants Monotypic Sapindales genera Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{sapindales-stub