K.M. Wong

Khoon Meng Wong is a botanist specialising in the Southeast Asian flora, in particular that of Borneo. He researches the woody bamboos, Rubiaceae (with a focus on the Gardenia and Guettarda tribes), Gentianaceae (mainly the Fagraea complex), Melastoma (Melastomataceae), Saurauia (Actinidiaceae), and various other woody plant families. He is keenly interested in plant diversity and its unique expressions (endemism, rarity), how biogeographic distributions may have patterns across the landscape that inform ecology, evolution and conservation, and plant form and adaptation. Dr Wong is Principal Researcher in Plant Taxonomy with the Singapore Botanic Gardens, National Parks Board, where he is part of the new Flora of Singapore project. He has lived in Borneo for nine years and continues to visit for research there, and has held appointments as Forest Botanist at the Forest Research Institute Malaysia and the Brunei and Sabah Forestry Departments, as well as Professor at the University of Malaya.