Altingiaceae is a small family of in the order Saxifragales,[Peter F. Stevens (2001 onwards). "Altingiaceae". At: Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. At: Missouri Botanical Garden Website. (see External links below)] consisting of Anemophily trees that produce hard, containing numerous . The fruits have been studied in considerable detail.[Stephanie M. Ickert-Bond, Kathleen B. Pigg, and Jun Wen. 2005. "Comparative infructescence morphology in Liquidambar (Altingiaceae) and its evolutionary significance". American Journal of Botany 92(8):1234-1255.][Stephanie M. Ickert-Bond, Kathleen B. Pigg, and Jun Wen. 2007. "Comparative infructescence morphology in Altingia (Altingiaceae) and discordance between morphological and molecular phylogenies". American Journal of Botany 94(7):1094-1115.] They naturally occur in Central America, Mexico, eastern North America, the eastern Mediterranean, China, and tropical Asia.[Stephanie M. Ickert-Bond and Jun Wen. 2006. "Phylogeny and biogeography of Altingiaceae: Evidence from combined analysis of five non-coding chloroplast regions". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 39(2):512-528. (see External links below).] They are often cultivated as Ornamental plant and many produce valuable Lumber.[Peter K. Endress. 1993. "Hamamelidaceae". pages 322–331. In: Klaus Kubitzki (editor); Jens G. Rohwer and Volker Bittrich (volume editors). The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants volume II. Springer-Verlag: Berlin;Heidelberg, Germany.]
Classification
Altingiaceae now consists of the single genus
Liquidambar with 15 known species.
Previously, the
genera Altingia and
Semiliquidambar were also recognised, but these represent a rapid radiation and have been difficult to separate reliably.
Semiliquidambar has recently been shown to be composed of
hybrid plant of species of
Altingia and
Liquidambar. This result had been expected for some time.
and
Liquidambar are known to be
paraphyletic and a revision of the family has been prepared.
Many of the
species are closely related, and distinctions between them are likely to be artificial.
History
The name "Altingiaceae" has a long and complex taxonomic history. Some attribute the name to
John Lindley, who published it in 1846. Others say that the authority for the name is Paul F. Horaninov, who described the group in 1841.
[James L. Reveal. 2008 onward. "A Checklist of Family and Suprafamilial Names for Extant Vascular Plants." At: Home page of James L. Reveal and C. Rose Broome. (see External links below).] In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the family Altingiaceae was not generally accepted. Most authors placed these genera in
Hamamelidaceae and this treatment has been followed in some recent works as well.
[Vernon H. Heywood, Richard K. Brummitt, Ole Seberg, and Alastair Culham. Flowering Plant Families of the World. Firefly Books: Ontario, Canada. (2007).] In the twenty-first century, however, molecular phylogenetic studies have shown that including Altingiaceae in Hamamelidaceae makes Hamamelidaceae paraphyletic. The Angiosperm Phylogeny Group recognizes four families in the lineage including Altingiaceae. Cercidiphyllaceae and
Daphniphyllaceae are sister. This clade is sister to
Hamamelidaceae and these three families are sister to Altingiaceae. The clade is sister to Paeoniaceae
[Shuguang Jian, Pamela S. Soltis, Matthew A. Gitzendanner, Michael J. Moore, Ruiqi Li, Tory A. Hendry, Yin-Long Qiu, Amit Dhingra, Charles D. Bell, and Douglas E. Soltis. 2008. "Resolving an Ancient, Rapid Radiation in Saxifragales". Systematic Biology 57(1):38-57. (see External links below).]
The family is named for the genus Altingia, now a synonym of Liquidambar. This genus was named in honor of Willem Arnold Alting (1724–1800), the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies when Noronha visited Java.[Hayne F. G. 1830: Getreue Darstellung und Beschreibung der in der Arzneykunde gebräuchlichen Gewächse. Vol. 11. Berlin. - Online]
Evolution
Altingiaceae have an extensive
fossil record.
[Kathleen B. Pigg, Stephanie M. Ickert-Bond, and Jun Wen. 2004. "Anatomically preserved Liquidambar (Altingiaceae) from the middle Miocene of Yakima Canyon, Washington State, USA, and its biogeographic implications". American Journal of Botany 91(3):499-509.][Zhe-Kun Zhou, William L. Crepet, and Kevin C. Nixon. 2001. "The earliest fossil evidence of the Hamamelidaceae: Late Cretaceous (Turonian) inflorescences and fruits of Altingioideae". American Journal of Botany 88(5):753-766.][Patrick S. Herendeen, Susana Magallón-Puebla, Richard Lupia, Peter R. Crane, and Jolanta Kobylinska. 1999. "A preliminary conspectus of the Allon flora from the late Cretaceous (late Santonian) of central Georgia, USA". Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 86(2):407-471.] For most of the
Paleogene and
Neogene, they were more widely
Biogeography than they are today. The
stem group Altingiaceae diverged from the
clade Hamamelidaceae in the
Turonian stage of the
Cretaceous Period, about 90 mya (million years ago). The
crown group Altingiaceae is much more recent, originating in the
Eocene, about 40 Mya.
Bibliography
