Super fascinating chats! Here in NZ we have two semi parasitic plants (Exocarpus bidwillii of Santalaceae - super weird looking leafless, alpine plant and the other is Mida salicifolia, a tree that was shifted from Santalaceae to Nanodeaceae but still Santalales). Always cool to see such different biodiversity in different areas and then have the odd related taxon pop up here and there, biogeographical explanations of some of these links are a total mystery to me sometimes 😂
It's really extraordinary to how related plants have managed to distribute themselves around the world, and I often like to think that Australia and New Zealand have to be some of the most distant places from North America in terms of floral similarity but there are always some exceptions. I think we get also get a few species of Myositis in Utah, which is a genus that has many more species in New Zealand right? I'm definitely going to have to stop by New Zealand sometime in the future.
@Ashitaka-gx2od yea looks like there's about 40 species of them here! Apparently assumed to have been a single dispersal event followed by some extreme amounts of adaptive radiation
Super fascinating chats! Here in NZ we have two semi parasitic plants (Exocarpus bidwillii of Santalaceae - super weird looking leafless, alpine plant and the other is Mida salicifolia, a tree that was shifted from Santalaceae to Nanodeaceae but still Santalales).
Always cool to see such different biodiversity in different areas and then have the odd related taxon pop up here and there, biogeographical explanations of some of these links are a total mystery to me sometimes 😂
It's really extraordinary to how related plants have managed to distribute themselves around the world, and I often like to think that Australia and New Zealand have to be some of the most distant places from North America in terms of floral similarity but there are always some exceptions. I think we get also get a few species of Myositis in Utah, which is a genus that has many more species in New Zealand right?
I'm definitely going to have to stop by New Zealand sometime in the future.
@Ashitaka-gx2od yea looks like there's about 40 species of them here! Apparently assumed to have been a single dispersal event followed by some extreme amounts of adaptive radiation