| Polyscias gracilis | |
|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| (unranked): | Angiosperms |
| (unranked): | Eudicots |
| (unranked): | Asterids |
| Order: | Apiales |
| Family: | Araliaceae |
| Genus: | Polyscias |
| Species: | P. gracilis |
| Binomial name | |
| Polyscias gracilis Marais | |
Polyscias gracilis is a species of plant in the Araliaceae family. It is endemic to Mauritius.
Plants are mainly multicellular, predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, plants were treated as one of two kingdoms including all living things that were not animals, and all algae and fungi were treated as plants. However, all current definitions of Plantae exclude the fungi and some algae, as well as the prokaryotes. By one definition, plants form the clade Viridiplantae, a group that includes the flowering plants, conifers and other gymnosperms, ferns and their allies, hornworts, liverworts, mosses and the green algae, but excludes the red and brown algae.
The Araliaceae is a family made of 52 genera and 700 species of flowering plants including perennial herbs, trees, vines and succulents. The family has large, usually alternate leaves, five-petaled flowers arranged in clusters, and berries. Some genera are used as foliage plants, such as Hedera (ivies).
Endemism is the ecological state of a species being unique to a defined geographic location, such as an island, nation, country or other defined zone, or habitat type; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsewhere. The extreme opposite of endemism is cosmopolitan distribution. An alternative term for a species that is endemic is precinctive, which applies to species that are restricted to a defined geographical area.
