A plant found in the jungles of Manus Province has quietly joined the scientific record in 2025, following its formal description by botanists working with one of the world's leading plant institutions, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. The plant, now known as Eugenia venteri, was identified from specimens collected in the lowland forests of Manus, an island province better known for its reefs and wartime history than for botanical discoveries. Yet Manus sits within one of the most biologically complex regions on earth, where isolation, high rainfall, and geology have combined to produce plant life found nowhere else.
The formal scientific description was published in Kew Bulletin, with Dr. Stephanus Venteri as the primary author, alongside co-authors Yee Wen Low, László Csiba, Arison Arihafa, and Eve Lucas. The collaboration links fieldwork carried out in Papua New Guinea with taxonomic expertise based at Kew.
