Timonius singularis, commonly known as false fig, is a species of plant in the family Rubiaceae, native to northeastern Queensland, Australia. It is an epiphyte in rainforest, and was first described in 1875. It has a conservation status of least concern.
Description Timonius singularis is an epiphyte shrub or tree up to tall. It can also grow as a lithophyte. The stipules are large and conspicuous, growing up to long. The leaves are glossy and hairless, and arranged in opposite pairs. They measure up to long by wide and the venation is indistinct.
The inflorescences are borne in the and consist of either a single flower or a panicle of up to five flowers. The is about long; the corolla lobes are about long with conspicuous longitudinal ridges. This species is dioecious, meaning that male and female flowers are borne on separate plants.
The fruit is a berry turning red or purple when ripe, and measuring about long and wide. They contain numerous pale seeds about long.
Distribution and habitat The false fig grows in rainforest as an epiphyte on other trees, or occasionally on boulders. It is mostly restricted to upland forests between Paluma Range National Park and Cooktown, with a small number of occurrences in outlying populations on Cape York Peninsula.
Taxonomy This species was first described by Victorian colonial botanist Ferdinand von Mueller in 1875, as Abbottia singularis. Mueller's description was based on a specimen collected by John Dallachy. It was transferred to its current name in 1957 by Lindsay Stuart Smith.
Conservation , this species has been assessed to be of least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and in the Queensland government's Wildnet database. The IUCN supports its assessment by stating that the species has a wide distribution and that no immediate threats to the species are known. The Wildnet database does not provide any explanation for the assessments made.
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References
External links
Map of herbarium collections of this species at the Australasian Virtual Herbarium Observations of this species on iNaturalist Images of this species on Flickriver.com