| Nothofagus | |
|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| (unranked): | Angiosperms |
| (unranked): | Eudicots |
| (unranked): | Rosids |
| Order: | Fagales |
| Family: | Nothofagaceae Kuprian. |
| Genus: | Nothofagus Blume |
| Species | |
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Nothofagus, also known as the southern beeches, is a genus of 36 species of trees and shrubs native to the temperate oceanic to tropical Southern Hemisphere in southern South America (Chile, Argentina) and Australasia (east and southeast Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, New Guinea and New Caledonia). Fossils have recently been found in Antarctica.[1]
In the past, they were included in the family Fagaceae, but genetic tests by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group revealed them to be genetically distinct, and they are now included in a family their own, the Nothofagaceae.
The leaves are toothed or entire, evergreen or deciduous. The fruit is a small, flattened or triangular nut, borne in cupules containing two to seven nuts.
Nothofagus species are used as food plants by the larvae of hepialid moths of the genus Aenetus, including A. eximia and A. virescens.
Many individual trees are extremely old, and at one time it was believed that some populations could not reproduce in present-day conditions at the location where they were growing, except by suckering (clonal reproduction), being remnant forest from a cooler time. It has since been shown that sexual reproduction may occur,[2] but distribution in cool, isolated high-altitude environments at temperate and tropical latitudes is consistent with the theory that the genus was more prolific in a cooler age.[3]
The genus is classified in the following sections:[4]
The pattern of distribution around the southern Pacific Rim suggests the dissemination of the genus dates to the time when Antarctica, Australia and South America were connected, a common land-mass or supercontinent referred to as Gondwana.[5]
In South America, the northern genus limit can be construed as La Campana National Park and the Vizcachas Mountains in the central part of Chile.[6]
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