Dwarf ebony

Description

Trochetiopsis ebenus, the dwarf ebony or Saint Helena ebony, is a species of flowering plant that is endemic to the island of Saint Helena in the southern Atlantic Ocean. It is not related to the ebony of commerce (Diospyros spp.), but is instead a member of the mallow family, Malvaceae. Saint Helena ebony is now critically endangered in the wild, being reduced to two wild individuals on a cliff, but old roots are sometimes found washed out of eroding slopes (relicts of its former abundance). These are collected on the island a used for inlay work, an important craft on Saint Helena. A related species, Trochetiopsis melanoxylon is now completely extinct. It can be propagated from cuttings and many island gardens now boast a fine ebony bush. It is related to the Saint Helena redwood (Trochetiopsis erythroxylon) and a hybrid between them (Trochetiopsis × benjamini) is also now often planted. Trochetiopsis ebenus has staminodes that are dark maroon or "black". The flowering plant genus Trochetiopsis consists of two extant and one extinct species endemic to the island of Saint Helena (South Atlantic Ocean). They were formerly placed in the family Sterculiaceae, but this is included in the expanded Malvaceae in the APG and most subsequent systematics. There is evidence from fossil pollen that the Trochetiopsis lineage has been on Saint Helena since the late Miocene (some 9.5 million years). The species of this genus were formerly included in the genus Trochetia, but were separated by Marais in 1981 on the basis of geography and morphological characters. Unlike in Trochetia, the Trochetiopsis flowers have only five stamens, and the sepals generally have appressed sericeous indumentum on their interior faces (although one species, T. melanoxylon, lacks this last character). The wood of all the species is attractively coloured and is used in island inlay work. Trochetiopsis is closely related to the genera Melhania and Paramelhania, with a 2021 study subsuming Trochetiopsis and Paramelhania into Melhania.