''Platycarya'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

s in the family

Juglandaceae The Juglandaceae are a plant family known as the walnut family. They are trees, or sometimes shrubs, in the order Fagales. Members of this family are native to the Americas, Eurasia, and Southeast Asia. The nine or ten genera in the family have ...

native to eastern

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

in China,

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...

, and Japan.Flora of China
''Platycarya''
/ref>Flora of China
''Platycarya strobilacea''
/ref> Isola Bella (78)

It is a

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and Botany, the term ''deciduous'' () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, ...

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are ...

growing to 15 m tall. The leaves are usually pinnate, 15–30 cm long with 7–15 leaflets (rarely simple, or with up to 23 leaflets), the terminal leaflet present; the leaflets are 3–11 cm long and 1.5–3.5 cm broad. The

flower A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae). The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction, usually by providing a mechani ...

s are presented as catkins; the male (pollen) catkins are 2–15 cm long, the female catkins 2.5–5 cm long at maturity, hard and woody, superficially resembling a

conifer cone A conifer cone (in formal botanical usage: strobilus, plural strobili) is a seed-bearing organ on gymnosperm plants. It is usually woody, ovoid to globular, including scales and bracts arranged around a central axis, especially in conife ...

with spirally arranged scales. The genus was formerly treated as comprising a single species '' Platycarya strobilacea'', though the second living species '' Platycarya longzhouensis'' is now recognized. A number of fossil species have been discovered across the Northern Hemisphere dating from the Early Eocene, although they became confined to eastern Asia during the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in ...

ice ages. *†'' Platycarya americana'' *†'' Platycarya bognorensis'' *†'' Platycarya castaneopsis'' *†'' Platycarya manchesterii'' *†'' Platycarya miocenica'' *†'' Platycarya pseudobrauni'' *†'' Platycarya richardsoni'' (sic ''P. richardsonii'')

References

* Juglandoideae Fagales genera Flora of China Flora of Japan Flora of Korea {{Fagales-stub