Social media post sparks rediscovery of endemic Sri Lanka rainforest plant

COLOMBO — In 2012, Sri Lanka’s National Red List delivered a grim verdict on endemic Pini- Beraliya, the towering dipterocarp Doona ovalifolia (syn. Shorea ovalifolia) tree by categorizing it as “extinct in the wild.” For decades, the species was known mainly from a single cultivated specimen in the Royal Botanic Gardens in Peradeniya in central Sri Lanka. That solitary tree, rising above the landscaped grounds, became a living relic of a vanished rainforest giant, a symbol of both loss and the faint hope that somewhere, perhaps, the species still survived. The first clue that Pini-Beraliya might still exist in the wild surfaced unexpectedly via a Facebook post. In May 2018, a member of the Facebook group “Medicinal Plant Identification” posted about the tree, requesting the group’s hundre