taxonID	type	description	language	source
2A6C9836FFEA8E43FC97DDB634AEFBB6.taxon	description	1 Herbarium, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, TW 9 3 AB, United Kingdom; e-mail: t. utteridge @ kew. org. Unique in the genus Maesa with very large elliptic-lanceolate leaves over 40 cm long, and the short racemes with subsessile flowers; most similar to Maesa haplobotrys but differing from this species in the larger leaves (larger than 22 cm), the peti- oles (longer than 2.5 cm), and the subsessile flowers (pedicels shorter than 0.5 – 2.5 mm long at anthesis). Type. Brass 13603 (holotype L; isotype BO n. v.), Netherlands New Guinea [Indonesia, Papua Province], 4 km SW of Bernhard Camp, Idenburg River [approx. S 3 ° 28 ' E 139 ° 10 '], 850 m alt, fl. & fr., March 1939. Etymology. The epithet is derived from the Greek ‘ greatest leaf’, and re- fers to the extremely long leaves, other taxa have large leaves but these are usually more broadly elliptic to ovate (e. g. M. maxima (C. B. Clarke) Mez with leaves recorded up to 30 cm long but with an almost orbicular leaf shape). ‘ Unbranched, 2 – 2.5 m high’ fide Brass 13603. Indumentum of hairs and scales: hairs short, less than 1 mm long, translucent and colourless, giving a hirsutellous appearance on the vegetative parts (see description of specific structures for distribution); scales peltate, up to 1 mm diam, pale ginger-brown with a central dark centre (sometimes drying white due to collecting method), ± sessile, circular, (see description of specific structures for distribution). Branches terete, c. 9.5 mm diam, drying pale grey-brown with scattered lenticels, scaly to densely scaly, glabrous. Leaves spirally arranged; lamina elliptic-lanceolate, 42 – 47 by 10 – 12 cm, chartaceous, drying dark brown above, tawny-brown below, adaxial surface glabrous, abaxial surface scaly to densely scaly; base attenuate; margins serrulate-ser- rate, with 23 – 27 teeth on each side terminating the secondary veins; apex acute; midrib hairy to densely hairy adaxially (scales absent), scaly to densely scaly abaxially (hairs absent); secondary veins 15 – 17 pairs, semicraspedodromous, indumentum as lamina; petiole 2.5 – 3.5 cm long, lamina ± decurrent along the petiole at the distal end, glabrous. Staminate inflorescences and flowers not seen. Pistillate inflorescences lateral (axillary), racemes, solitary or fasciculate with up to 3 inflorescences per axil, 1.5 – 3.5 cm long at anthesis, 4 – 7 cm long at fruit, axis densely scaly (hairs lacking); flowers subsessile on pedicels less than 0.25 mm long at anthesis, densely scaly toward the distal end; bracts triangular, 1 – 1.5 mm long, scaly to densely scaly (hairs absent), margins entire, apex acute; bracteoles subopposite, inserted at the base of the hypanthium, size and e shape as bracts. Pistillate flowers pentamerous, ‘ brown’ fide Brass 13603; calyx lobes triangular, 1.2 – 1.5 by 1.5 – 2.0 mm, glabrous, margins entire, apex acute to rounded; corolla 2.5 – 3.0 mm long, connate to half its length; corolla lobes broadly triangular, margins entire, apex rounded; staminodes epipetalous, arising c. 1.0 mm from the base of the corolla; pistil (including hypanthium) ellipsoid, c. 2.0 mm long; hypanthium scaly to sparsely scaly; style 1.5 – 2.0 mm long, stigma ± 3 - lobed. Fruits globose to ellipsoid, 4.0 – 5.5 by 5.0 – 6.0 mm, scaly to sparsely scaly (hairs absent); pedicels at fruiting 1.5 mm long; bracteoles remaining subopposite to each other at the base of the fruit; persistent calyx lobes overlapping; seeds c. 65 per fruit. Distribution & Ecology — New Guinea, Papua Province (formerly the eastern half of Irian Jaya), known only from the type. ‘ Rain-forest undergrowth’; Brass 13603; 850 m. Conservation assessment — Maesa megistophylla is assessed here as Data Deficient following the criteria of IUCN (2012). The species is currently only known from the type collection made during the Archbold Expedition in 1939 from an area of lowland forest on the northern side of the central range along the Idenburg River (western tributary of the Mamberamo), an area which has no road access and has not been exploited for logging or plantations. The collection notes state that the species is ‘ common on river plains’, but it was not collected during expeditions that visited adjacent areas, e. g. Doctors van Leeu- wen who collected in the Mamberamo basin during the Dutch- American (Stirling) Expedition of 1926, and no collections of this species were made during the RBG Kew Mt Jaya expeditions on the southern side of the range. These observations suggest that the species may have a small Extent of Occurrence, but without more collections to understand the distribution and population size it is assessed here as Data Deficient.	en	Utteridge, T. M. A. (2015): A new species of Maesa (Primulaceae-Maesoideae) from New Guinea. Blumea 59 (3): 226-228, DOI: 10.3767/000651915X689505, URL: https://doi.org/10.3767/000651915x689505
