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A new species of Syzygium (Myrtaceae) from the Bird’s Head Peninsula, western New Guinea

Syzygium oransbariense Mustaqim, Y.W.Low & Heatubun (Myrtaceae) is here formally described. This species is found in the lowlands on the eastern flank of the Arfak Mountains, Bird’s Head Peninsula, western New Guinea. The species is similar to Syzygium longipes (Diels) Merr. & L.M.Perry but differs based on a set of diagnostic morphological characters. Species description, distribution, a preliminary conservation status assessment, and notes on the new species are presented here.


Introduction
Syzygium (Myrtaceae) is the most speciose tree genus in the world with over 1200 accepted species (Beech et al. 2017;Govaerts et al. 2020). The genus occurs throughout the tropical and subtropical regions of the Old World, from West Africa to India, across Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean, to Hawaii in the east and New Zealand in the south. The centre of its species diversity is the Malay Archipelago, a region biogeographically known as Malesia (Craven 2001;van Steenis 1950). The most comprehensive account pertinent to New Guinean Syzygium, by Hartley and Perry (1973), enumerated 138 species with many taxa unaccounted for, listed at the end of their monograph. Many novelties subsequently have since been discovered and described for New Guinea (see Conn and Damas 2015;Hambali et al. 2017;Snow 2010;Takeuchi 2002Takeuchi , 2015, mainly from Papua New Guinea. Recently, a comprehensive specialist-verified checklist of New Guinean vascular plants enumerated 207 Syzygium species, the largest tree genus recorded for the island (Cámara-Leret et al. 2020). The checklist also highlighted Indonesian New Guinea as poorly explored botanically in comparison to Papua New Guinea (Frodin 2001;Johns 1997;Cámara-Leret et al. 2020). A revision of the Bird's Head Peninsula Syzygium species was initiated in 2017 in collaboration with the Singapore Botanic Gardens (Singapore), Universitas Papua (Indonesia), BALITBANGDA Papua Barat (Indonesia), Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (UK), and University of Aberdeen (UK) is on-going (YW Low pers. comm.).
On one of the botanical field trips carried out under the Ekspedisi NKRI Koridor Papua Barat in 2016 in the eastern coast of the Bird's Head Peninsula, a peculiar Syzygium specimen was collected from the undisturbed primary lowland hill forests of Oransbari District, Papua Barat Province, Indonesia. More collecting trips were conducted in surrounding areas, either during the same period or on separate explorations in 2018, and no other morphologically similar individual has been encountered. A thorough herbarium study of collections at BM, BO, CNS, K, MAN, and SING (herbarium abbreviations follow Thiers 2020-continuously updated), as well as surveys on published literature of New Guinean Syzygium (Conn and Damas 2015;Diels 1922;Greeves 1923;Hartley and Craven 1977;Hartley and Perry 1973;Merrill and Perry 1942;Ridley 1916;Snow and Craven 2010;Takeuchi 2002Takeuchi , 2015; Warburg 1891) accompanied by type examinations, failed to match the Oransbari taxon to any of the named Syzygium taxa for New Guinea. Hence, we concluded that the Oransbari taxon is an undescribed species closely related to Syzygium longipes (Diels) Merr. & L.M.Perry but differs based on a set of distinct morphological characters.

Diagnosis:
This species is similar to S. longipes (Warb.) Merr. & L.M.Perry but differs in having petioles that are 0.5-3.5 mm long (vs. 3-8 mm long in S. longipes), 3-flowered cymes, sometimes reduced to 1-flowered inflorescences (vs. thyrsoid racemiform inflorescences with 6 or more flowers in S. longipes), inflorescences exclusively shorter than the leaves (vs. inflorescence usually much longer than the leaves in S. longipes), peduncles shorter than a pair of bract-like or stipule-like leaves or cataphylls subtending at the base (vs. much longer peduncle in S. longipes), hypanthia (not including the stipe) 2-3.5 mm long (vs. 4-5 mm long in S. longipes), and shorter styles (9 mm long) (vs. 20 mm long in S. longipes). Etymology: The epithet is derived from the district name where the specimen was collected, namely the Oransbari District, Manokwari Selatan Regency.
Distribution: New Guinea: Endemic to the Bird's Head Peninsula, Manokwari Selatan Regency, Oransbari District. Known only from the type locality (Fig. 2).

Conservation status:
This species is here classified as Data Deficient (DD) based on the recommendations proposed under IUCN (2012). Syzygium oransbariense is known so far only from the type locality. The forests where this species was collected are undisturbed with no human activities recorded. However, this status requires reassessment as the surrounding areas have not been explored botanically.  Notes: Syzygium oransbariense is a member of the Gelpkea Blume (Blume 1850) group, here informally recognised, that includes a handful of congeners readily recognised by the presence of a pair of reduced bractlike or stipule-like leaves or cataphylls at the base of an inflorescence or new growth, as also noted by Hyland (1983) in S. puberulum Merr. & L.M.Perry. This trait is restricted to a few species in Eastern Malesia, namely New Guinea and Australia. Syzygium oransbariense differs from S. longipes in having 3-flowered or rarely reduced 1-flowered cymose inflorescences, shortly stalked hypanthia 2.5-3 mm, sepals c. 1 mm, and styles c. 9 mm. Another closely related species is S. aeoranthum (Diels) Merr. & L.M.Perry, it has a long-peduncled inflorescence with many flowers, similar to S. longipes. Both Syzygium aeoranthum and S. longipes are widespread in New Guinea, occurring in the lowland particularly under humid conditions to the foothill rainforests (Hartley and Perry 1973).