New Zealand no longer has any species of Nothofagus
Nothofagaceae now contains four genera (summary information from Phil Garnock-Jones blog, see link below).
- Nothofagus comprises just five species from temperate South America. The rest of the family is no longer classified as Nothofagus.
- Lophozonia is a reinstated genus, containing seven species from South America, New Zealand, and Australia.
- Fuscospora has six species and a very similar distribution; it’s a newly recognised genus, although like the others it has been treated as a subgenus in the past. Additionally in Fuscospora, this paper promotes mountain beech to species rank as F. cliffortioides. I look forward to reading the evidence for that change, because it was previously treated just as a variety of black beech.
- Finally, Trisyngyne is the largest genus (25 species) and found today in the tropics: New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea and extending into Indonesia.
What does that mean for the New Zealand taxa:
Red beech, Fuscospora fusca
Black beech, Fuscospora solandri
Mountain beech, Fuscospora cliffortioides
Hard beech, Fuscospora truncata
Silver beech, Lophozonia menziesii
For the original paper by Heenan & Smissen 2013 follow this link: http://biotaxa.org/Phytotaxa/article/view/phytotaxa.146.1.1
For an easy to understand version follow this link to Phil Garnock-Jones’ blog:
http://theobrominated.blogspot.co.nz/2013/11/a-new-classification-for-southern.html?m=1
Posted: 14/11/2013