Nothofagus

Location & distribution maps

Phylogeny & links to associated information:

Wikipedia links:       Angiosperms > Eudicots > Rosids  > Fabids  >  Fagales > Nothofagus

Other links:     

Plant  information

Common name:                Southern Beech

Conservation status:  ...

Etymology:   

• Nothofagus - from the Greek nothos, meaning false and fagus, referring to the original belief that this genus was related to Northern Hemisphere Beech (Fagus) trees

• Nothofagus means “false beech” although there is some suggestion that this is due to a misspelling of the intent NOTOfagus, meaning “Southern beech”

• There is a suggestion that the genus was changed due to a spelling error

Flowers:                  

Fruit:                         

• The fruit is a small, flattened or triangular nut

• Borne in cupules containing 1 to 7 nuts

Leaves:         

• The leaves are toothed or entire, evergreen or deciduous

Stem & branches: 

Roots:         

Habit:        

• Trees and shrubs

Habitat:   

• The species are ecological dominants in many temperate forests 

Distribution:                  

• Native to the Southern Hemisphere:

  • southern South America (Chile, Argentina)

  • east and southeast Australia

  • New Zealand

  • New Guinea

  • New Caledonia

Species:                     

• World:           43

• Australia:       3

Additional notes:     

• Some species are reportedly naturalised in Germany and Great Britain

• The genus has a rich fossil record of leaves, cupules, and pollen,

• Fossils extendinto the late Cretaceous period and occurring in Australia, New Zealand, Antarctica, and South America

• Reproduction

  • Many individual trees are extremely old, and at one time, some populations were thought to be unable to reproduce in present-day conditions where they were growing, except by suckering (clonal reproduction), being remnant forest from a cooler time

  • Sexual reproduction has since been shown to be possible

• Taxonomy

  • The genus Nothofagus was first formally described in 1850 by Carl Ludwig Blume

  • He published the description in his book Museum botanicum Lugduno-Batavum, sive, Stirpium exoticarum novarum vel minus cognitarum ex vivis aut siccis brevis expositio et descriptio

  • In the past, they were included in the family Fagaceae, but genetic tests revealed them to be genetically distinct, and they are now included in their own family, Nothofagaceae

• Species list

  • The following is a list of species, hybrids and varieties (44)  of accepted by the Plants of the World Online as of April 2023:

• Subgenera

  • Four subgenera are recognized, based on morphology and DNA analysis:

    • Subgenus Fuscospora, six species (N. alessandri, N. cliffortioides, N. fusca, N. gunnii, N. solandri, and N. truncata) in New Zealand, Tasmania, and southern South America

    • Subgenus Lophozonia, seven species (N. alpina, N. cunninghamii, N. glauca, N. macrocarpa, N. menziesii, N. moorei, and N. obliqua) in New Zealand, Australia, and southern South America.

    • Subgenus Nothofagus, five species (N. antarctica, N. betuloides, N. dombeyi, N. nitida, and N. pumilio) in southern South America

    • Subgenus Brassospora (or Trisyngyne), 20 accepted species (N. aequilateralis, N. balansae, N. baumanniae, N. brassii, N. carrii, N. codonandra, N. crenata, N. discoidea, N. flaviramea, N. grandis, N. nuda, N. perryi, N. pseudoresinosa, N, pullei, N. recurva, N. resinosa, N. rubra, N. starkenborghiorum, N. stylosa, and N. womersleyi) in New Guinea and New Caledonia

  • In 2013, Peter Brian Heenan and Rob D. Smissen proposed splitting the genus into four, turning the four recognized subgenera into the new genera Fuscospora, Lophozonia and Trisyngyne, with the five South American species of subgenus Nothofagus remaining in genus Nothofagus

  • The proposed new genera are not accepted at the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families

Sources of information:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothofagus (Jan 2024)