The Crypteroniaceae are a family of flowering trees and

shrub A shrub (often also called a bush) is a small-to-medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees ...

s. The family includes 13 species in three

genera 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 nomenclat ...

, native to Indomalaya.

Genera

There are three genera of Crypteroniaceae, all native to Asian

tropical forests Tropical forests (a.k.a. jungle) are forested landscapes in tropical regions: ''i.e.'' land areas approximately bounded by the tropic of Cancer and Capricorn, but possibly affected by other factors such as prevailing winds. Some tropical fores ...

: * ''

Axinandra ''Axinandra'' is a genus of plant in family Crypteroniaceae The Crypteroniaceae are a family (biology), family of flowering plant, flowering trees and shrubs. The family includes 13 species in three genus, genera, native to Indomalaya. Gener ...

'' Thwaites * ''

Crypteronia ''Crypteronia'' is a genus of flowering trees and shrubs in the family Crypteroniaceae. The genus includes seven species, ranging from eastern India through Southeast Asia and southern China to the Malay Peninsula, Indonesia and New Guinea. Spe ...

'' Blume * ''

Dactylocladus ''Dactylocladus'' is a monotypic genus of trees in the family Crypteroniaceae. It contains the single species ''Dactylocladus stenostachys''. The generic name means "finger twigs", referring to the branching of the twigs. The specific epithet '' ...

'' Oliv. The genus ''

'' includes four species, one in

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

(''A. zeylanica'') and the others in Borneo and the

Malay Peninsula The Malay Peninsula (Malay: ''Semenanjung Tanah Melayu'') is a peninsula in Mainland Southeast Asia. The landmass runs approximately north–south, and at its terminus, it is the southernmost point of the Asian continental mainland. The area ...

. ''

'' includes seven species, ranging from eastern India through Southeast Asia and southern

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

to the

, Indonesia, and New Guinea. ''

'' consists of a single species, native to the lowland peat swamp forests of Borneo.

Phylogeny

Morphological analyses, supported by recent chloroplast DNA analysis, indicates that Crypteroniaceae are most closely related to four small myrtalean families, Penaeaceae, Oliniaceae, and Rhynchocalycaceae of southern Africa, and

Alzateaceae ''Alzatea verticillata'' is a small flowering tree, native to the Neotropics. It inhabits moist submontane forests from Costa Rica and Panama in Central America south to Peru and Bolivia in tropical South America. It is the sole species of genus ...

Central Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object. Central may also refer to: Directions and generalised locations * Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...

and South America. The common ancestor of these five families is thought to have originated in western

Gondwana Gondwana () was a large landmass, often referred to as a supercontinent, that formed during the late Neoproterozoic (about 550 million years ago) and began to break up during the Jurassic period (about 180 million years ago). The final stages ...

during the Cretaceous epoch, and the Crypteroniaceae were carried northward with India after the breakup of the southern supercontinent, differentiating into the three genera before India's collision with Asia. The genera subsequently spread from India to the moist tropical forests of Southeast Asia.

References

* Conti, E., Erikkson, T., Schonenberger, J., Sytsma, K. J., & Baum, D. A. (2002). Early Tertiary Out-of-India Dispersal of Crypteroniaceae: Evidence from Phylogeny and Molecular Dating. ''Evolution'' 56 (10): 1931–1942.

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q131822 Myrtales families