Microcachrys tetragona

Location & distribution maps

Plant description

Common name:         Strawberry Creeping Pine 

• Also, Creeping strawberry pine

• It shares the common name Creeping pine with several other plants

Conservation status: . . .

Etymology:   

Cones and seed:                            

• Females produce tiny, red, edible berries in summer

Leaves:         

• Its leaves are scale-like, arranged (unusually for the Podocarpaceae) in opposite decussate pairs, superficially resembling those of the unrelated Diselma archeri

Stem & branches: 

Roots:         

Habit:        

• Dioecious conifer shrub growing to 1 m tall at high altitudes

Habitat:   

• Mountain thickets and boulder-fields

Distribution:                  

• Endemic to western Tasmania

• The genus Microcachrys clearly had a very broad, Gondwanic distribution

• But now, the sole surviving species, Microcachrys tetragona, is a shrub restricted to Tasmania

Additional notes:     

• Fossil record and paleoendemism

  • Microcachrys has been called one of the most spectacular cases of paleoendemism

  • It is a known relictual plant, being widespread in the past but now having a very restricted distribution

  • The only extant species today, Microcachrys tetragona, produces a very distinctive pollen grain compared with other members of its family, Podocarpaceae

  • Records of fossil pollen from the genus have been recorded from all over the Southern Hemisphere throughout the Cenozoic

  • Being found in Antarctica,  Australia, the now sunken islands of the Ninety-east Ridge of the Indian Ocean, New Zealand, southern Africa and South America

  • Ocean drillings in the Kerguelen Plateau near Heard Island have revealed conifer remains with twigs very similar in appearance to those of Microcharys

  • The fossil record of Microcachrys is one of many compelling lines of evidence which points to the highly dynamic and changing Southern Hemisphere vegetation through the Cenozoic since the break up of Gondwana

Sources of information:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcachrys (2023)