26-472: Big Woods refers to a type of temperate hardwood forest ecoregion found in western Wisconsin and south-central Minnesota . "Big Woods" is a direct translation of the name given to the region by French explorers: Grand Bois . The dominant trees are American elm , basswood , sugar maple , and red oak . The understory is composed of ironwood , green ash , and aspen . The Big Woods would have once covered 5,000 square miles (13,000 km) in
52-467: A cooler time. Sexual reproduction has since been shown to be possible. The genus Nothofagus was first formally described in 1850 by Carl Ludwig Blume who published the description in his book Museum botanicum Lugduno-Batavum, sive, Stirpium exoticarum novarum vel minus cognitarum ex vivis aut siccis brevis expositio et descriptio . Nothofagus means "false beech", which Blume chose to indicate that Nothofagus species were different from beeches in
78-573: A diagonal strip 100 miles (160 km) long and 40 miles (64 km) wide. Today most of this region has been cleared for agriculture and urban development. Remnant and secondary stands of Big Woods remain in parks and other protected areas. Native vegetation based on soils information (note the bright green color) from the Natural Resources Conservation Service of the United States Department of Agriculture shows
104-516: A distinct dry season . A dry season occurs in the winter in East Asia and in summer on the wet fringe of the Mediterranean climate zones. Other areas, such as central eastern North America, have a fairly even distribution of rainfall; annual rainfall is typically over 600 mm (24 in) and often over 1,500 mm (59 in), though it can go as low as 300 mm (12 in) in some parts of
130-495: A peak abundance during the Miocene. Their distribution contracted westwards during the late Miocene due to the aridification of Patagonia. Although the genus now mostly occurs in cool, isolated, high-altitude environments at temperate and tropical latitudes , the fossil record shows that it survived in climates that appear to be much warmer than those that Nothofagus now occupies. Nothofagus species are used as food plants by
156-531: The Araucariaceae and Podocarpaceae ) occur in mixtures with broadleaf species, and are classed as broadleaf and mixed forests. Temperate broadleaf and mixed forests occur in areas with distinct warm and cool seasons, including climates such as humid continental , humid subtropical , and oceanic , that give them moderate annual average temperatures: 3 to 23 °C (37 to 73 °F). These forests occur in relatively warm and rainy climates, sometimes also with
182-672: The Himalayas , Western and Central Europe , the southern coast of the Black Sea , Australasia , Southwestern South America and the Russian Far East . The typical structure of these forests includes four layers. In the Northern hemisphere, characteristic dominant broadleaf trees in this biome include oaks ( Quercus spp.), beeches ( Fagus spp.), maples ( Acer spp.), or birches ( Betula spp.). The term "mixed forest" comes from
208-757: The Late Cretaceous . During the Campanian Nothofagus diversified and became dominant within Antarctic ecosystems, with the appearance of all four modern subgenera by the end of the stage. Nothofagus shows a progressive decline in the Antarctic pollen record through the Maastrichtian , before substantially recovering after the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary . Nothofagus persisted in Antarctica deep into
234-645: The Northern Hemisphere . In the past, they were included in the family Fagaceae , but genetic tests revealed them to be genetically distinct, and they are now included in their own family, Nothofagaceae . The following is a list of species, hybrids and varieties accepted by the Plants of the World Online as of April 2023: Four subgenera are recognized, based on morphology and DNA analysis: In 2013, Peter Brian Heenan and Rob D. Smissen proposed splitting
260-466: The humid continental climate zones to the south of tundra and the generally subarctic taiga . In the Köppen climate classification they are represented respectively by Cfa , Dfa/Dfb southern range and Cfb , and more rarely, Csb , BSk and Csa . Nothofagus Nothofagus , also known as the southern beeches , is a genus of 43 species of trees and shrubs native to
286-550: The larvae of hepialid moths of the genus Aenetus , including A. eximia and A. virescens . Zelopsis nothofagi is a leaf hopper, endemic to New Zealand, which is found on Nothofagus . Cyttaria is genus of ascomycete fungi found on or associated with Nothofagus in Australia and South America. Misodendrum are specialist parasitic plants found on various species of Nothofagus in South America. Additionally,
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#1732847614348312-593: The prairie to the west and the oak savanna to the south and east. The Minnesota and Crow Rivers flow through the region, but many of the 100 or so lakes had no inlets or outlets. The Big Woods have a growing season of about 145–150 days and an average annual precipitation of 30 inches (760 mm). A fragment of the Big Woods in mostly pristine condition is preserved in Nerstrand-Big Woods State Park near Nerstrand, Minnesota . Little House in
338-602: The Big Woods by American author Laura Ingalls Wilder takes place near her home town of Pepin, Wisconsin . Temperate hardwood forest Temperate broadleaf and mixed forest is a temperate climate terrestrial habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature , with broadleaf tree ecoregions , and with conifer and broadleaf tree mixed coniferous forest ecoregions. These forests are richest and most distinctive in central China and eastern North America , with some other globally distinctive ecoregions in
364-526: The Cenozoic, despite the increasingly inhospitable conditions, with the final records from the late Neogene , around 15-5 million years old, which were small tundra-adapted prostrate shrubs , similar to Salix arctica (Arctic willow). Nothofagus first appeared in southern South America during the late Campanian. During the Paleocene and Eocene they were mostly restricted to southern Patagonia, before reaching
390-573: The Middle East and close to 6,000 mm (240 in) in the mountains of New Zealand and the Azores. Temperatures are typically moderate except in parts of Asia such as Ussuriland , or the Upper Midwest , where temperate forests can occur despite very harsh conditions with very cold winters. The climates are typically humid for much of the year, usually appearing in the humid subtropical climate and in
416-512: The Southern Hemisphere in southern South America (Chile, Argentina) and east and southeast Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea , and New Caledonia . The species are ecological dominants in many temperate forests in these regions. Some species are reportedly naturalised in Germany and Great Britain. The genus has a rich fossil record of leaves, cupules , and pollen, with fossils extending into
442-727: The beetle, Brachysternus prasinus , has been known to live in Nothofagus in Chile and in parts of Argentina. The geographic range of B. prasinus is highly dependent on the availability and distribution of Nothofagus on which B. prasinus is believed to feed. B. prasinus have been observed in the Nothofagus forests near the cities of Coquimbo and Llanquihue in Chile as well as the areas of Neuquén and Chubut in Western Argentina. The species of subgenus Brassospora are evergreen, and distributed in
468-483: The distribution of Nothofagus derives from the break-up of Gondwana (i.e. vicariance ), or if long-distance dispersal has occurred across oceans. In South America, the northern limit of the genus can be construed as La Campana National Park and the Vizcachas Mountains in the central part of Chile. Nothofagus first appeared in Antarctica during the early Campanian stage (83.6 to 72.1 million years ago) of
494-471: The genus into four, turning the four recognized subgenera into the new genera Fuscospora , Lophozonia and Trisyngyne , with the five South American species of subgenus Nothofagus remaining in genus Nothofagus . The proposed new genera are not accepted at the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families . The following additional species are listed as extinct: The pattern of distribution around
520-533: The historic extent of oak savannas in the Big Woods region (See accompanying pie chart , below). The soil of the Big Woods is thick glacial till of crushed limestone , deposited by the Des Moines lobe of the Wisconsin glaciation 10,000 years ago. The landscape is characterized by round hills and numerous undrained lakes left by melting ice blocks. These hills and lakes suppressed fires that were instrumental forces on
546-444: The inclusion of coniferous trees as a canopy component of some of these forests. Typical coniferous trees include pines ( Pinus spp.), firs ( Abies spp.), and spruces ( Picea spp.). In some areas of this biome, the conifers may be a more important canopy species than the broadleaf species. In the Southern Hemisphere, endemic genera such as Nothofagus and Eucalyptus occupy this biome, and most coniferous trees (members of
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#1732847614348572-507: The late Cretaceous period and occurring in Australia, New Zealand, Antarctica, and South America. The leaves are toothed or entire, evergreen or deciduous . The fruit is a small, flattened or triangular nut , borne in cupules containing one to seven nuts. Many individual trees are extremely old, and at one time, some populations were thought to be unable to reproduce in present-day conditions where they were growing, except by suckering ( clonal reproduction ), being remnant forest from
598-453: The lower montane forests, and below the conifer -dominated upper montane forests. Nothofagus grows in mixed stands with trees of other species or in pure stands, particularly on ridge crests and upper slopes. The Central Range has the greatest diversity of species, with fewer species distributed among the mountains of western and northern New Guinea, New Britain, and Goodenough and Normanby islands. The New Caledonian species are endemic to
624-407: The main island (Grand Terre), most commonly on soils derived from ultramafic rocks between 150 and 1350 meters elevation. They occur in isolated stands, forming a low or stunted and irregular and fairly open canopy. The conifers Agathis and Araucaria are sometimes present as emergents, rising 10 to 20 meters above the Nothofagus canopy. Every four to six years or so, Nothofagus produces
650-558: The southern Pacific Rim suggests the dissemination of the genus dates to the time when Antarctica, Australia, and South America were connected in a common land-mass or supercontinent referred to as Gondwana . However, genetic evidence using molecular dating methods has been used to argue that the species in New Zealand and New Caledonia evolved from species that arrived in these landmasses by dispersal across oceans. Uncertainty exists in molecular dates and controversy rages as to whether
676-453: The tropics of New Guinea, New Britain, and New Caledonia. In New Guinea and New Britain Nothofagus is characteristic of lower montane rain forests between 1000 and 2500 meters elevation, occurring infrequently at elevations as low as 600 meters, and in upper montane forests between 2500 and 3150 meters elevation. Nothofagus is most commonly found above the Castanopsis - Lithocarpus zone in
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