Southern Beech Tree Pictures, Information on Southern Beech Trees
Welcome to our southern beech tree pictures page. On this page you will find lots of nice pictures of southern beech trees. You will also find a lot of wonderful information on southern beech trees, including information about the southern beech tree species, planting information, and much more. This is valuable and useful information that can help you to learn more about the southern beech tree.
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Here is some detailed information on the southern beech tree.
Nothofagus, also known as the southern beeches, is a genus of 35 species of trees and shrubs native to the temperate oceanic to tropical Southern Hemisphere in southern South America (Chile, Argentina) and Australasia (east & southeast Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, New Guinea and New Caledonia). Fossils have recently been found in Antarctica.
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 2 to 7 nuts.
Nothofagus species are used as food plants by the larva of hepialid moths of the genus Aenetus including A. eximia and A. virescens.
Many individuals 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, but distribution in cool, isolated high-altitude environments at temperate and tropical latitudes is consistent with the theory that the species was more prolific in a cooler age.
Nothofagus is a plant genus that illustrates Gondwanan distribution, having descended from the supercontinent and existing in current day Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia and Chile. Gondwana being one of the super continents that existed in the Southern Hemisphere in the Late Triassic Age. Estimates date the formation of the super continent and its division from its predecessor super continent Laurasia at about 180 to 200 million years ago.
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