It was pushed up from the earth’s crust as molten rock millions of years ago. The granodiorite is intrusive into strongly folded strata, probably of Eocene to Miocene age, and associated ultrabasic and basic igneous rocks. Mount Kinabalu is essentially a massive pluton formed from granodiorite which is intrusive into sedimentary and ultrabasic rocks, and forms the central part, or core, of the Kinabalu massif. soils which are low in phosphates and high in iron and metals poisonous to many plants this high toxic content gave rise to the development of distinctive plant species found nowhere else). However, most of Kinabalu’s endemic species are found in the mountain forests, particularly on ultramafic soils (i.e. This diversity is greatest in the lowland regions (consisting of lowland dipterocarp forests, so called because the tree family Dipterocarpaceae are dominant). Its incredible biodiversity in plant life is due to a combination of several unique factors: its setting in one of the richest plant regions of the world (the tropical biogeographical region known as western Malesia which comprises the island of Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula, and the island of Borneo), the fact that the mountain covers a wide climatic range from near sea level to freezing ground conditions near the summit, the jagged terrain and diversity of rocks and soils, the high levels of rainfall (averaging about 2,700 millimetres (110 in) a year at park HQ), and the climatic instability caused by periods of glaciation and catastrophic droughts which result in evolution and speciation. Meanwhile another Rafflesia species, Rafflesia tengku-adlinii, can be found on the neighbouring Mount Trus Madi and the nearby Maliau Basin. The parasitic Rafflesia plant, which has the largest single flower in the world, is also found in Kinabalu (particularly Rafflesia keithii whose flower grows to 94 centimetres (37 in) in diameter), though it should be noted that blooms of the flower are rare and difficult to find. The orchids are the best-known example with over 800 species including some of the highly-valued Paphiopedilum slipper orchids, but there are also over 600 species of ferns (more than the whole of Africa’s 500 species) of which 50 are found nowhere else, and the richest collection in the world for the Nepenthes pitcher plants (five of the thirteen are found nowhere else on earth) which reach spectacular proportions (the largest-pitchered in the world being the endemic Nepenthes rajah). species which are found only within Kinabalu Park and are not found anywhere else in the world). These plants have high levels of endemism (i.e.
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