| | Family guide for fruits and seeds |
Common name: Southern-beech Family.
Number of genera 1. Number of species 36.
Angiosperm. Magnoliopsida.
Disseminule an intact or entire fruit.
Fruits
Pistil(s) simple; 1 to 2–5; 1–3-pistillate. Fruit anthocarp; simple; glans (from index in Spjut); without persistent central column; within accessory organ(s); within involucre, or cupule (shallow or more or less deep cupules are similar to but not the fused many bracts of Quercus, Fagaceae); accrescent; persistent; 1-seeded to more than 1 but less than 10-seeded; 1–3-seeded; less than 1 cm long to from 1–5 cm long; 0.5–1.1 cm long; 1-carpellate; not sulcate; apex not beaked; indehiscent. Epicarp dull; durable; glabrous (without hairs), or not glabrous (with hairs); hairs very short (puberulent); hairs scattered; hairs not glandular; without armature; without wing(s), or with wing(s); 1–3-winged (central maybe 2-winged; lateral maybe 2-winged); with wing(s) lateral; without apical respiratory hole. Mesocarp absent. Endocarp present; not separating from exocarp; thin; not splitting into 1-seeded pyrenes; without operculum; without secretory cavities; without longitudinal ridges. Funiculus short; short without seed bearing hooks (retinacula); not persisting in fruit after seed shed.
Seeds
Aril absent. Seed ovate; in transection flattened; not bowl shaped; not nutlike; without winglike beak; without caudate appendage(s); at maturity with food reserves, or without apparent food reserves; with endosperm; without canavanine. Sarcotesta absent. Testa present; without markedly different marginal tissue; without fleshy or leathery layer over hard layer; without crease or line separating cotyledons from hypocotyl-radicle; without notch along margin where cotyledons from hypocotyl-radicle tip approach each other; without glands; without bristles; glabrous; without wings; without collar; without operculum; colored; monochrome; membranous; not becoming mucilaginous when wetted; surrounding embryo (based on family character).
Embryo differentiated from food reserve; well developed; 1 per seed; completely filling testa (no food reserve); 1 times the length of food reserve; at one end of seed not extending into a depression or cup; without coleorhiza; without simmondsin; without stomata; not green; with 2 or more cotyledons. Cotyledons 2; well developed; not divaricate; somewhat to significantly wider than hypocotyl-radicle; thin; flat, or once-folded, or plicate, or crumpled; with apices entire; equal in size; not punctate dotted.
Distribution
New World, Old World. Argentina & Chile South America, Australia, and Oceania (to New Zealand & New Caledonia).
Notes
Goldberg: "Fruit nut, partly to completely enclosed in incolucre". Cupule hardened in fruit, enclosing 1 to 3 nuts; ca. 5–7 mm, nut 3 or 1 per "cup", cupule 2–4-partite valved. Nuts flat, more or less orbicular to ovate, rarely lined with a thin margin, 1-seeded. Fruit with 1, 2-winged central nut and 2, 3-winged lateral nuts.
Weed information
No USA noxious weeds.
Listed seeds
No ASOA or ISTA listed seeds.
Accepted genera
Nothofagus Blume, nom. cons.
References specific to this family
Cronquist page 223 (Cronquist & Mabberley have in Fagaceae). Prain, D. 1910. Bot. Mag. 136: Plate 8314; Correa, M.N. 1984. Flora Patagonica, Parte 4a. Collección Científica del Inta, Buenos Aires; Dimitri, M.J. & V.A. Milano. 1950. Las plantas cultivadas en la Republica Argentina: Fagaceas. Min. Agric. Ganad. 8:1–15; Soepadmo, E. 1972–75. Fagaceae. In: C.G.G.J. van Steenis, ed., Flora Malesiana, vol. 7, pp. 265–403. Wolpers-Noordhoff Publishers, Groningen.
General references
(Extracted from Fagaceae.) Cronquist, A. 1981. An integrated system of classification of flowering plants, 1,262 p. Columbia University Press, New York, Flora of Australia (various years and volumes). Australian Government Publication, Canberra, Goldberg, A. 1986 (dicots) and 1989 (monocots). Classification, evolution, and phylogeny of the familes of Dicotyledons. Smithsonian Contr. Bot. 58 for dicots (314 pp.) and 71 for monocots (74 pp.). [Goldberg's illustrations are reproduced from older publications and these should be consulted], Gunn, C.R., J.H. Wiersema, C.A. Ritchie, and J.H. Kirkbride, Jr. 1992 and amendments. Families and genera of Spermatophytes recognized by the Agricultural Research Service. Techn. Bull. U.S.D.A. 1796:1–500, Mabberley, D.J. 1987. The plant-book, 706 p. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, Spjut, R.W. 1994. A systematic treatment of fruit types. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 70:1–182.
Illustrations
Acceptable fruit and poor seed illustrations. Disseminule illustration(s): fruit, or embryo. Fruit illustration(s): Flora of Australia vol. 3, Correa (1984), Curtis Botanical Magazine (1910), Dimitri & Milano (1950). Seed illustration(s): Karen [is this a seed?]. Embryo illustration(s): Karen. Karen's plate number and taxon (taxa): 061: Nothofagus fusca (Hook. f.) Oerst (I-J) [from Fagaceae].
• Fruit. 1 of 3. Nothofagus alpina (Poepp. & Endl.) Oerst.: dehisced fruit. • Seed. 2 of 3. Nothofagus alpina (Poepp. & Endl.) Oerst.: seeds. • Embryo. 3 of 3. Nothofagus fusca (Hook. f.) Oerst.: embryo.
We advise against extracting comparative information from the descriptions. This is much more easily achieved using the DELTA data files or the interactive key, which allows access to the character list, illustrations, full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting or lacking specified attributes, and distributions of character states within any set of taxa. See also Guidelines for using data taken from Web publications.
Cite this publication as: ‘J.H. Kirkbride, Jr., C.R. Gunn, and M.J. Dallwitz. 2000 onwards. Family guide for fruits and seeds: descriptions, illustrations, identification, and information retrieval. Version: 12th April 2021. delta-intkey.com’.
