Meliosma

Meliosma
Meliosma veitchiorum
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
(unranked): Angiosperms
(unranked): Eudicots
Order: unplaced
Family: Sabiaceae
Genus: Meliosma
Blume
Species

See text

Synonyms

Millingtonia Roxb.
Wellingtonia Meisn.

Meliosma is a genus of flowering plants in the family Sabiaceae, native to tropical to warm temperate regions of southern and eastern Asia and the Americas. It is traditionally considered to contain about 100 species; some botanists[1] take a much more conservative view accepting only 20-25 species as distinct. They are trees or shrubs, growing to 10–45 m tall.

Fossil evidence shows the genus formerly had a much wider range in the Northern Hemisphere, including Europe and central Asia until the late Pliocene ice ages, and somewhat earlier in North America.[2]

The Indian Awlking (Choaspes benjaminii) is one of the Lepidoptera whose caterpillars feed on Meliosma; they have been found on M. pungens, rhoifolia, M. rigida, and M. squamulata.

Selected species

Asia

  • Meliosma angustifolia
  • Meliosma arnottiana (syn. Wellingtonia arnottiana)
  • Meliosma beaniana
  • Meliosma bifida
  • Meliosma callicarpaefolia
  • Meliosma cuneifolia
  • Meliosma dilleniifolia
  • Meliosma dumicola
  • Meliosma flexuosa
  • Meliosma fordii
  • Meliosma glandulosa
  • Meliosma henryi
  • Meliosma kirkii
  • Meliosma laui
  • Meliosma longipes
  • Meliosma myriantha
  • Meliosma oldhamii
  • Meliosma parviflora
  • Meliosma paupera
  • Meliosma pinnata
  • Meliosma pungens
  • Meliosma rhoifolia
  • Meliosma rigida
  • Meliosma simplicifolia
  • Meliosma squamulata
  • Meliosma sumatrana
  • Meliosma thomsonii
  • Meliosma thorelii
  • Meliosma veitchiorum
  • Meliosma velutina
  • Meliosma yunnanensis

Americas

Footnotes

  1. E.g. van Beusekom (1971)
  2. van Beusekom (1971)

References

External links

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