New Guinea has the world's richest island flora.

New Guinea is the world's largest tropical island and has fascinated naturalists for centuries. Home to some of the best-preserved ecosystems on the planet and to intact ecological gradients-from mangroves to tropical alpine grasslands-that are unmatched in the Asia-Pacific region, it is a globally recognized centre of biological and cultural diversity. So far, however, there has been no attempt to critically catalogue the entire vascular plant diversity of New Guinea.

(Melastomataceae), a new species from ultramafic soils in the Philippines.

A new species, Fernando, from ultramafic soils on Dinagat and Mindanao Islands, Philippines is described and illustrated. The species is characterized by its terrestrial erect habit, non-setose nodes, 3-plinerved, lanceolate and coriaceous leaves arranged in whorls, cauline or axillary and pendulous inflorescences, rounded flower buds, 4-merous flowers, and straight anthers. It is compared with other similar species in the Merr.