Flowering Trees & Shrubs Codexery

Nothofagus

Southern beeches: ancient trees of the Southern Hemisphere.

Last updated

Nothofagus, the southern beeches, is a genus of trees and shrubs native to the Southern Hemisphere.[1] The genus was first formally described in 1850 by Carl Ludwig Blume.[2] Carl Ludwig Blume, in his 1850 work Museum botanicum Lugduno-Batavum, gave the genus the name Nothofagus, which translates to "false beech", a term he selected to highlight that these species are distinct from the beeches found in the Northern Hemisphere.[2]

Scientific classification

  1. CladeTracheophytes
  2. CladeAngiosperms
  3. CladeEudicots
  4. CladeRosids
  5. OrderFagales
  6. FamilyNothofagaceae
  7. GenusNothofagus

Named by Blume

Sources: Wikipedia taxobox: Nothofagus (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Biology and range

Nothofagus includes 43 species of trees and shrubs found across southern South America, Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, and New Caledonia.[1] The genus has a rich fossil record extending into the late Cretaceous period.[1] Nothofagus first appeared in Antarctica during the early Campanian stage of the Late Cretaceous.[3] During the Campanian, all four modern subgenera appeared and Nothofagus became dominant in Antarctic ecosystems.[3]

Nothofagus persisted in Antarctica into the late Neogene, around 15-5 million years ago, as small tundra-adapted prostrate shrubs.[3] The southernmost tree in the world is reportedly a Nothofagus betuloides on Isla Hornos at the southern edge of Tierra del Fuego.[4] A number of individual trees are very old, and there was a period when it was believed that certain populations could only propagate through clonal suckering, as they were considered relicts from a colder era.[5] It has subsequently been demonstrated that sexual reproduction is feasible.[5]

In New Guinea and New Britain, Nothofagus is a typical component of lower montane rain forests at elevations ranging from 1000 to 2500 m, and it is found less often at elevations as low as 600 m, as well as in upper montane forests from 2500 to 3150 m.[6]

What the specialist sources record

The GBIF Backbone Taxonomy accepts Nothofagus as a genus in the family Nothofagaceae, order Fagales.[7] GBIF holds 97,796 occurrence records for this taxon as of October 2026.[7] John Charles Ryan describes the southern beech as a cool-temperate rainforest tree endemic to Australia, New Zealand and South America.[8] Ryan also notes that climatic disruption in coming decades will impact Nothofagus dramatically.[8]

A 1999 study by Zheng, Wang, and Pu found that the pollen exine ultrastructure of Nothofagus differs from Fagaceae genera by its thickness, type of aperture, and ornamentation.[9][10]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Nothofagus" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "The number of known plants species in the world and its annual increase", Phytotaxa, 2016, p. 201–217; Veblen, "Ecology and Biogeography of Nothofagus Forests", Yale University Press, 1996; Kew World Checklist of Selected Plant Families; Hill, "Biogeography, evolution and palaeoecology of Nothofagus (Nothofagaceae): The contribution of the fossil record", Australian Journal of Botany, 2001, p. 321 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Nothofagus" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Nothofagus", Australian Plant Census; Blume, "Museum botanicum Lugduno-Batavum, sive, Stirpium exoticarum novarum vel minus cognitarum ex vivis aut siccis brevis expositio et descriptio", 1850, p. 306–307; Ryan, ""Solitary in Your Rainy Kingdom:" Postcolonial Poetic Narratives of the Southern Beech", Revista Interdisciplinar de Literatura e Ecocrítica, 2021-07-25, p. 5–28 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Nothofagus" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Cantrill, "Transformative Paleobotany", Elsevier, 2018, p. 645–659; Rees-Owen, "A calibration of cellulose isotopes in modern prostrate Nothofagus and its application to fossil material from Antarctica", Science of the Total Environment, February 2021 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Nothofagus" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "The tree at the bottom of the world—and the wind-blasted trek to find it", Magazine, 2025-12-18 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Nothofagus" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Abstracts on Global Climate Change", cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Nothofagus" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Read, "The Ecology and Biogeography of Nothofagus Forests", Yale University Press, 1996, p. 200–256 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  7. GBIF Backbone Taxonomy and occurrence index, Nothofagus (taxon key 2874877). CC BY 4.0 (backbone); counts are facts. gbif.org
  8. Ryan, ""Solitary in Your Rainy Kingdom:" Postcolonial Poetic Narratives of the Southern Beech", Revista Interdisciplinar de Literatura e Ecocrítica, 2021-07-25, p. 5–28. facts only, no text reused. asle-brasil.com
  9. Zheng, "A comparative study on pollen exine ultrastructure of Nothofagus and the other genera of Fagaceae.", Journal of Systematics and Evolution, 1999, p. 253–258. facts only, no text reused. jse.ac.cn
  10. Wikipedia, "Nothofagus" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Manos, "Phylogenetic analyses of 'higher' Hamamelididae based on plastid sequence data", American Journal of Botany, 1997, p. 1407–1419; Manos, "Phylogenetic analyses of 'higher' Hamamelididae based on plastid sequence data", American Journal of Botany, 1997, p. 1407–1419; Steed‐Mundin, "The Southern Beeches: an introduction to the genus Nothofagus Blume", Curtis's Botanical Magazine, December 2024, p. 439–456; Zheng, "A comparative study on pollen exine ultrastructure of Nothofagus and the other genera of Fagaceae.", Journal of Systematics en.wikipedia.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Nothofagus (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

More in Flowering Trees & Shrubs

Nothofagus fuscaNothofagus menziesiiPopulusPopulus tremulaPopulus tremuloidesPopulus trichocarpaQuercus acutissimaQuercus albaQuercus macrocarpaQuercus roburQuercus rubraQuercus suber

Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

Spotted an error? Know more?

Reader corrections go straight into our review queue. Suggest an edit · How this site is sourced

Comments

Loading…
Open in the interactive codex →