Meliosma

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.

Meliosma
Meliosma veitchiorum
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Order: Proteales
Family: Sabiaceae
Genus: Meliosma
Blume
Species

See text

Synonyms

Millingtonia Roxb.
Wellingtonia Meisn.

Meliosma henryi
Meliosma pinnata var. oldhamii seeds,

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

Fossil record

Fossil endocarps from the early Miocene of Meliosma wetteraviensis, have been found in the Czech part of the Zittau Basin. Stratigraphical range of this taxon is from the late Oligocene to Pliocene of Western Europe and Siberia. [3]

Footnotes
  1. E.g. van Beusekom (1971)
  2. van Beusekom (1971)
  3. Acta Palaeobotanica - 43(1): 9-49, January 2003 - Early Miocene carpological material from the Czech part of the Zittau Basin - Vasilis Teodoridis

References
  • van Beusekom, C.F. (1971): Revision of Meliosma (Sabiaceae), section Lorenzanea excepted, living and fossil, geography and phylogeny. Blumea 19: 355–529.


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