Adenodaphne
Encyclopedia
Adenodaphne is a genus of flowering plant
s, evergreen
trees or shrubs belonging to the family Lauraceae
, of five species
from New Caledonia
. They are large trees characteristics of Rainforest in montane
laurel forest
habitat
s in New Caledonia
and restricted to this region. They belong to an ancient Gondwanian element of Laurales. They are having 12 chromosomes.
A The genus was described by Spencer Le Marchant Moore
published in Journal of the Linnean Society, Botany 45: 385in 1921.
s up to 1 metre in diameter. The thick, leathery leaves are dark green. The leaves are glossy laurel type.
The forests are made up of laurel-leaved evergreen
hardwood
tree
s, harbouring a rich biota
of understorey plants, invertebrate
s, bird
s and bat
s. Adenodaphne require continuously moist soil, and do not tolerate drought.
Trees or shrubs, dioecious. The ecological requirements of the genus, are those of the laurel forest
and like most of their counterparts laurifolia in the world, they are vigorous species with a great ability to populate the habitat that is conducive. Adenodaphne genus responde to characteristic formations of laurel forest
. The natural habitat is tropical montane laurel forest of New caledonia which are cloud-covered for much of the year. These species are found in forests that face threats of destruction by human deforestation
. It could caused the extinction of the genus across the restricted region area, resulting in the present distribution. They are in danger of extinction due to over exploitation as medicinal plants or timber extraction and also for loss of habitat.
and have mostly smooth, glossy, lauroide type leaves.
They are evergreen
tree
with some species growing to 25 m tall.
The inflorescences are consisting in pseudo-umbels (a flat-topped or rounded flower cluster) that are arranged in a racime, sometimes condensed, or a short-shoot or rarely sessile. Each pseudo-umbel with an involucre of decussate, crossed in the form of an X, usually persistent bracts.
Leaves glabrous or pubescent, domatia
absent.
Inflorescences axillary or solitary seudoumbelas along very short sharp branches, appearing racemose, covered before anthesis by an involucre of bracts decussate.
The flower is from greenish, yellow to white. Male and female flower
on different plants. The pollination
is done by bee
s and other insect
s.
The flowers are irregular. The flowers are unisexuals, male flowers with 5 to 20 fertile stamens. The female with a ovary globose and a floral tube. The flowers could be without petals to nine petals by species. The petals when present are equal or unequal, often caducous during anthesis. In the stamens, several inner ones with glands.
Filaments usually longer than the anthers. Anthers are having four locule
s. The pollen sacs arranged mostly in two pairs above each other, all introrse. Lower pollen sacs are latrorse.
The staminodes usually are absent. The tepal
s usually are deciduous. The Pistillo or gynoecium
well developed to absent. Fruits on a light or markedly thickened pedicel, supported by a shallow or deep dome, simple margin. The flower have a flat to deeply cup-shaped receptacle
.The fruit is a drupe of variable shape and size. The most striking are its fruits, The fruit is an ellipsoid to ovoid drupe or berry, and the seed is a single kernel. Plum-like to olive-like drupe settled on a discoid small dome. With shape rounded or ovoid, brown to black, rarely green, purple, reddish, orange to pale yellow. The fruits are a very important food source for bird
s and other wildlife. The seed dispersion
is the result of scattering by columbiform birds mostly but also bat
s and endemic
s birds like kagu
, parrots or rallidaes. Most seeds pass through the bird's digestive system intact. Seed dispersal
via ingestion by vertebrate animals, mostly birds and mammals, is the dispersal mechanism for most tree species.
Flowering plant
The flowering plants , also known as Angiospermae or Magnoliophyta, are the most diverse group of land plants. Angiosperms are seed-producing plants like the gymnosperms and can be distinguished from the gymnosperms by a series of synapomorphies...
s, evergreen
Evergreen
In botany, an evergreen plant is a plant that has leaves in all seasons. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which completely lose their foliage during the winter or dry season.There are many different kinds of evergreen plants, both trees and shrubs...
trees or shrubs belonging to the family Lauraceae
Lauraceae
The Lauraceae or Laurel family comprises a group of flowering plants included in the order Laurales. The family contains about 55 genera and over 3500, perhaps as many as 4000, species world-wide, mostly from warm or tropical regions, especially Southeast Asia and South America...
, of five species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
from New Caledonia
New Caledonia
New Caledonia is a special collectivity of France located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, east of Australia and about from Metropolitan France. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of...
. They are large trees characteristics of Rainforest in montane
Montane
In biogeography, montane is the highland area located below the subalpine zone. Montane regions generally have cooler temperatures and often have higher rainfall than the adjacent lowland regions, and are frequently home to distinct communities of plants and animals.The term "montane" means "of the...
laurel forest
Laurel forest
Laurel forest is a subtropical or mild temperate forest, found in areas with high humidity and relatively stable and mild temperatures. They are characterized by tree species with evergreen, glossy, enlongated leaves, known as laurophyll or lauroide...
habitat
Habitat
* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...
s in New Caledonia
New Caledonia
New Caledonia is a special collectivity of France located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, east of Australia and about from Metropolitan France. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of...
and restricted to this region. They belong to an ancient Gondwanian element of Laurales. They are having 12 chromosomes.
A The genus was described by Spencer Le Marchant Moore
Spencer Le Marchant Moore
Spencer Le Marchant Moore was an English botanist.Moore was born in Hampstead. He worked at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew from about 1870 to 1879, wrote a number of botanical papers, and then worked in an unofficial capacity at the Natural History Museum from 1896 until his death.Moore is...
published in Journal of the Linnean Society, Botany 45: 385in 1921.
Overview
They are leafy canopy trees with erect or spreading branches. It grows to heights of up to 25 metres some species 40 m. and have stout trunkTrunk (botany)
In botany, trunk refers to the main wooden axis of a tree that supports the branches and is supported by and directly attached to the roots. The trunk is covered by the bark, which is an important diagnostic feature in tree identification, and which often differs markedly from the bottom of the...
s up to 1 metre in diameter. The thick, leathery leaves are dark green. The leaves are glossy laurel type.
The forests are made up of laurel-leaved evergreen
Evergreen
In botany, an evergreen plant is a plant that has leaves in all seasons. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which completely lose their foliage during the winter or dry season.There are many different kinds of evergreen plants, both trees and shrubs...
hardwood
Hardwood
Hardwood is wood from angiosperm trees . It may also be used for those trees themselves: these are usually broad-leaved; in temperate and boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostly evergreen.Hardwood contrasts with softwood...
tree
Tree
A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...
s, harbouring a rich biota
Biota (ecology)
Biota are the total collection of organisms of a geographic region or a time period, from local geographic scales and instantaneous temporal scales all the way up to whole-planet and whole-timescale spatiotemporal scales. The biota of the Earth lives in the biosphere.-See...
of understorey plants, invertebrate
Invertebrate
An invertebrate is an animal without a backbone. The group includes 97% of all animal species – all animals except those in the chordate subphylum Vertebrata .Invertebrates form a paraphyletic group...
s, bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
s and bat
Bat
Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera "hand" and pteron "wing") whose forelimbs form webbed wings, making them the only mammals naturally capable of true and sustained flight. By contrast, other mammals said to fly, such as flying squirrels, gliding possums, and colugos, glide rather than fly,...
s. Adenodaphne require continuously moist soil, and do not tolerate drought.
Trees or shrubs, dioecious. The ecological requirements of the genus, are those of the laurel forest
Laurel forest
Laurel forest is a subtropical or mild temperate forest, found in areas with high humidity and relatively stable and mild temperatures. They are characterized by tree species with evergreen, glossy, enlongated leaves, known as laurophyll or lauroide...
and like most of their counterparts laurifolia in the world, they are vigorous species with a great ability to populate the habitat that is conducive. Adenodaphne genus responde to characteristic formations of laurel forest
Laurel forest
Laurel forest is a subtropical or mild temperate forest, found in areas with high humidity and relatively stable and mild temperatures. They are characterized by tree species with evergreen, glossy, enlongated leaves, known as laurophyll or lauroide...
. The natural habitat is tropical montane laurel forest of New caledonia which are cloud-covered for much of the year. These species are found in forests that face threats of destruction by human deforestation
Deforestation
Deforestation is the removal of a forest or stand of trees where the land is thereafter converted to a nonforest use. Examples of deforestation include conversion of forestland to farms, ranches, or urban use....
. It could caused the extinction of the genus across the restricted region area, resulting in the present distribution. They are in danger of extinction due to over exploitation as medicinal plants or timber extraction and also for loss of habitat.
Characteristics
The genus includes species of trees, and shrubs, with evergreen foliage and inconspicuous flowers. Adenodaphne are dioeciousDioecious
Dioecy is the property of a group of biological organisms that have males and females, but not members that have organs of both sexes at the same time. I.e., those whose individual members can usually produce only one type of gamete; each individual organism is thus distinctly female or male...
and have mostly smooth, glossy, lauroide type leaves.
They are evergreen
Evergreen
In botany, an evergreen plant is a plant that has leaves in all seasons. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which completely lose their foliage during the winter or dry season.There are many different kinds of evergreen plants, both trees and shrubs...
tree
Tree
A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...
with some species growing to 25 m tall.
The inflorescences are consisting in pseudo-umbels (a flat-topped or rounded flower cluster) that are arranged in a racime, sometimes condensed, or a short-shoot or rarely sessile. Each pseudo-umbel with an involucre of decussate, crossed in the form of an X, usually persistent bracts.
Leaves glabrous or pubescent, domatia
Domatia
Domatia are tiny chambers produced by plants that house arthropods.Domatia differ from galls in that they are produced by the plant rather than being induced by their inhabitants...
absent.
Inflorescences axillary or solitary seudoumbelas along very short sharp branches, appearing racemose, covered before anthesis by an involucre of bracts decussate.
The flower is from greenish, yellow to white. Male and female flower
Flower
A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs...
on different plants. The pollination
Pollination
Pollination is the process by which pollen is transferred in plants, thereby enabling fertilisation and sexual reproduction. Pollen grains transport the male gametes to where the female gamete are contained within the carpel; in gymnosperms the pollen is directly applied to the ovule itself...
is done by bee
Bee
Bees are flying insects closely related to wasps and ants, and are known for their role in pollination and for producing honey and beeswax. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamily Apoidea, presently classified by the unranked taxon name Anthophila...
s and other insect
Insect
Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...
s.
The flowers are irregular. The flowers are unisexuals, male flowers with 5 to 20 fertile stamens. The female with a ovary globose and a floral tube. The flowers could be without petals to nine petals by species. The petals when present are equal or unequal, often caducous during anthesis. In the stamens, several inner ones with glands.
Filaments usually longer than the anthers. Anthers are having four locule
Locule
A locule is a small cavity or compartment within an organ or part of an organism ....
s. The pollen sacs arranged mostly in two pairs above each other, all introrse. Lower pollen sacs are latrorse.
The staminodes usually are absent. The tepal
Tepal
Tepals are elements of the perianth, or outer part of a flower, which include the petals or sepals. The term tepal is more often applied specifically when all segments of the perianth are of similar shape and color, or undifferentiated, which is called perigone...
s usually are deciduous. The Pistillo or gynoecium
Gynoecium
Gynoecium is most commonly used as a collective term for all carpels in a flower. A carpel is the ovule and seed producing reproductive organ in flowering plants. Carpels are derived from ovule-bearing leaves which evolved to form a closed structure containing the ovules...
well developed to absent. Fruits on a light or markedly thickened pedicel, supported by a shallow or deep dome, simple margin. The flower have a flat to deeply cup-shaped receptacle
Receptacle
-Angiosperms:In botany, the receptacle is the thickened part of a stem from which the flower organs grow. In some accessory fruits, for example the pome and strawberry, the receptacle gives rise to the edible part of the fruit....
.The fruit is a drupe of variable shape and size. The most striking are its fruits, The fruit is an ellipsoid to ovoid drupe or berry, and the seed is a single kernel. Plum-like to olive-like drupe settled on a discoid small dome. With shape rounded or ovoid, brown to black, rarely green, purple, reddish, orange to pale yellow. The fruits are a very important food source for bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
s and other wildlife. The seed dispersion
Seed dispersal
Seed dispersal is the movement or transport of seeds away from the parent plant. Plants have limited mobility and consequently rely upon a variety of dispersal vectors to transport their propagules, including both abiotic and biotic vectors. Seeds can be dispersed away from the parent plant...
is the result of scattering by columbiform birds mostly but also bat
Bat
Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera "hand" and pteron "wing") whose forelimbs form webbed wings, making them the only mammals naturally capable of true and sustained flight. By contrast, other mammals said to fly, such as flying squirrels, gliding possums, and colugos, glide rather than fly,...
s and endemic
Endemic (ecology)
Endemism is the ecological state of being unique to a defined geographic location, such as an island, nation or other defined zone, or habitat type; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsewhere. For example, all species of lemur are endemic to the...
s birds like kagu
Kagu
The Kagu or Cagou is a crested, long-legged, and bluish-grey bird endemic to the dense mountain forests of New Caledonia. It is the only surviving member of the genus Rhynochetos and the family Rhynochetidae, although a second species has been described from the fossil record...
, parrots or rallidaes. Most seeds pass through the bird's digestive system intact. Seed dispersal
Seed dispersal
Seed dispersal is the movement or transport of seeds away from the parent plant. Plants have limited mobility and consequently rely upon a variety of dispersal vectors to transport their propagules, including both abiotic and biotic vectors. Seeds can be dispersed away from the parent plant...
via ingestion by vertebrate animals, mostly birds and mammals, is the dispersal mechanism for most tree species.
Selected species
- Adenodaphne corifolia
- Adenodaphne macrophylla
- Adenodaphne spathulata
- Adenodaphne triplinervia
- Adenodaphne uniflora