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// Workers AI · dad joke modeWhat did the Endiandra tree say? Leaf me alone.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Endiandra
Endiandra pubens, leaf
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Magnoliids
Order: Laurales
Family: Lauraceae
Genus: Endiandra
R.Br.[1]
Species

Over 100

Synonyms[1]

Endiandra is a genus of about 130 species of plants, mainly trees, in the laurel family Lauraceae. They are commonly called "walnut" despite not being related to the Northern Hemisphere walnuts (Juglans spp.) which are in the family Juglandaceae.

Endiandra hypotephra flowers
Endiandra impressicosta fruit
Endiandra cowleyana inflorescence
Endiandra bellendenkerana flowers
Endiandra acuminata foliage and flowers

Description

[edit]

The genus consists of evergreen shrubs or trees. Leaves are alternate or spirally arranged, usually penninerved or rarely triplinerved. Inflorescences are usually paniculate and axillary. Flowers are bisexual and mostly trimerous with two whorls of three tepals, some are dimerous. There are usually three stamens, and the ovary is usually sessile or nearly so. It has a single carpel and a single ovule. The fruits are single-seeded drupes or berries with fleshy mesocarp and exocarp.[2][3]

Ecology

[edit]

Fossils show that before glaciations, when the climate was more humid and mild, species were distributed more widely. They are distributed in Asia, from India to Indochina, China, Malaysia, Australia, and Pacific islands, with 38 species endemic to Australia.

In Australia, they are often used as screen trees due to the thick foliage of a number of their species. Quite a few of the Australian species are rare, such as Endiandra globosa, Endiandra muelleri subsp. bracteata and Endiandra floydii.

The drying of the area during the glaciations caused Endiandra to retreat to the mildest climate refuges, including oceanic and southern islands and wetter mountain areas. With the end of the last glacial period, Endiandra recovered some of its former range. They are mostly relicts of a type of vegetation disappeared, which originally covered much of the mainland of Australia, South America, Antarctica, South Africa, North America and other lands when their climate were more humid and warm. Although warm Cloud forests disappeared during the glaciations, they re-colonized large areas every time the weather was favorable again. Most of the cloud forests are believed to have retreated and advanced during successive geological eras, and their species adapted to warm and wet gradually retreated and advanced, replaced by more cold-tolerant or drought-tolerant sclerophyll plant communities. Many of the then existing species became extinct because they could not cross the barriers posed by new oceans, mountains and deserts, but others found refuge as species relict in coastal areas and Islands.

Some species are well adapted to tropical dry or deciduous forests, including monsoon forests and dry monsoon forest. Some Endiandra present a convergent evolution due to ecological or physical drivers toward a similar solution, including analogous structures with species adapted to different environments, for example with plants adapted to Laurel forest habitat. These Endiandra resemble other genera in the family Lauraceae, and their leaves are lauroid type with berries eaten and dispersed mostly by birds. Others are even adapted to very wet media.

Some species are endangered and others have a very specialized ecological niche and consequently occupy small or specific areas. Although the majority of the species are the products of parapatric speciation, some groups have an ancient Gondwanan distribution and some groups responded to favourable climatic periods as opportunistic species and expanded across the available habitat, these last groups occur across wide distribution with close relatives and few species, indicating the recent divergence of these species.

Many species are having edible fruits. Some birds and bats that are specialised frugivores tend to eat the whole fruit and regurgitate seeds intact, which functions for Biological dispersal. Others swallow the fruit and pass the seed intact through the gut. An incomplete list of birds that rely heavily on the fruit for their diet include members of the families Cotingidae, Columbidae, Trogonidae, Turdidae, and Toucan. The fruits are an important food source for Palaeognathae highly dependent. Seed dispersal of various species in the genus is also carried out by fishes and big and small mammals as Pachyderms, Bovids, monkeys, arboreal rodents, porcupines, or possums.

Distribution

[edit]

Species of Endiandra are native to the following regions as defined in the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions:[4][5]

  • China – China South-Central, China Southeast, Hainan
  • Eastern Asia – Taiwan
  • Indian Subcontinent – Assam, Bangladesh, East Himalaya
  • Indo-China – Myanmar, Vietnam
  • Malesia – Borneo, Jawa, Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Maluku, Philippines, Sulawesi, Sumatera
  • Papuasia – New Guinea, Solomon Is.
  • Australia – New South Wales, Northern Territory, Queensland
  • Southwestern Pacific – Fiji, New Caledonia, Samoa, Santa Cruz Is., Tonga, Vanuatu

Species

[edit]

There were 134 species accepted by Plants of the World Online as of September 2026.[1] These are:

References

[edit]
  1. 1 2 3 "Endiandra R.Br". Plants of the World Online. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Retrieved 15 September 2026.
  2. ↑ Le Cussan, J.; Hyland, B.P.M. (2022). "Endiandra AUTHOR". Flora of Australia. Australian Biological Resources Study, Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water: Canberra. Retrieved 15 September 2026.
  3. ↑ Rohwer, J.G. (1993). "Lauraceae". In Kubitzki, Klaus (ed.). Flowering Plants, Dicotyledons: Magnoliid, Hamamelid, and Caryophyllid Families. The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants. Vol. II. Berlin: Springer. p. 385. doi:10.1007/978-3-662-02899-5. ISBN 978-3-642-08141-5.
  4. ↑ "Endiandra R.Br". World Flora Online. World Flora Online Consortium. 2026. Retrieved 15 September 2026.
  5. ↑ Brummitt, R.K. (2001). World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (PDF) (2nd ed.). International Working Group on Taxonomic Databases For Plant Sciences. Retrieved 15 September 2026.
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