KOTA KINABALU: The rare Chewlunia sabahensis coffee plant has been officially recognised as a novel genus.
The plant samples were first collected in 1975 by the department’s doyen of field-collecting, Leopold Madani. At the time, Chewlunia sabahensis remained unclassified as a new genus.
Due to its scarcity, a second plant sample was successfully collected on Bukit Tengkorak in the Meliau Range, Ulu Tungud Forest Reserve, 29 years later, in 2004.
The plant was then described as a novel plant-genus in the Sabah Forestry Department’s journal of plant systematics, Sandakania no. 24, published in 2023.
A third sample of the plant was collected on Nov 3, 2024 by Joel Dawat and Postar Miun of the Sandakan Herbarium, Forest Research Centre, Sabah Forestry Department. The plant was verified by was verified by Dr Chen Junhao of Singapore Botanic Gardens.
Sabah Forest Department chief conservator of forests, Datuk Frederick Kugan, praised the rediscovery and stressed that ongoing exploration and research are needed to understand Borneo’s diverse rainforest ecosystem and preserve Sabah’s biodiversity.
“This rediscovery strengthens our conservation mission as custodians of Sabah’s rainforests and underscores the importance of long-term botanical research,” Kugan said.
This breakthrough came after over a decade of collaborative research led by Dr Chen, Hoo Pui Kat (intern with Forest Research Centre Sepilok, who then obtained his M.Sc. at the University of Malaya and is now pursuing a Ph.D. at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak) and Dr KM Wong (a colleague of Dr Chen who was also at Sepilok in the 1990s).
The genus was named in honour of Datuk Chan Chew Lun, a distinguished Sabah publisher, naturalist, and historian whose contributions to the field have been widely celebrated.
