#broadleaved

Where did broadleaved evergreen trees survive during the last glacial period in Japan?

[ad_1] Scientists have modeled the phylogeographic relationships and demographic changes of Castanopsis sieboldii, which is a dominant tree of the broadleaved evergreen forests of Japan, dating back to about 100,000 years ago. The model strongly suggested that C. sieboldii survived in at least 4 areas through the last glacial maximum (LGM). The results present new evidence concerning conservation…

Many people are taught that the two classifications of trees are evergreen and deciduous. While there is no question that trees are either evergreen or deciduous, it is just a way to describe a tree in much the same way that people can be sorted by whether they are shorter or taller than 5 feet. 

Evergreen trees keep their leaves all year. Deciduous trees don’t.

The words conifer and evergreen are used as if they are synonyms which they are not. While most conifers are evergreen, a few like the larch (which I am currently crushing on because they have adorable cones) are deciduous. I can list the conifers that are deciduous here:

larch | many varieties

pseudolarix - New Entry - not a larch, but like a larch and definitely a deciduous conifer

dawn redwood

bald-cypress

pond cypress

Chinese swamp cypress

‘Deciduous’ is the word many people have been taught to describe trees with leaves that are not needle- or scale-like. The real word for that kind of tree is broadleaf. AND, you guessed it, not all broadleaf trees are deciduous. I cannot list all the evergreen broadleaf tree here because nobody wants to read for that long, but think holly.

There is a third kind of leaf-holding pattern which is a subset of deciduous. Marcescence describes trees whose leaves die in the fall but hang on through the winter and it can be partial.

Okay, in the interest of full disclosure, there is a debate whether it should be broadleaf or broadleaved but it makes my brain hurt to ruminate on the difference between those two words. Honestly, what is with those words where ‘f’ turn into ‘v’? There are also those who think conifers should be called coniferous trees. These debates are raging.