Scientific name Meliosma Rank Genus | ||
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Lower classifications Meliosma littlei, Meliosma cordata, Meliosma linearifolia, Meliosma sirensis, Meliosma youngii | ||
Meliosma glabrata pollen release
Meliosma is a genus of flowering plants in the family Sabiaceae, native to tropical to warm temperate regions of southern and eastern Asia and the Americas. It is traditionally considered to contain about 100 species; some botanists take a much more conservative view accepting only 20-25 species as distinct. They are trees or shrubs, growing to 10–45 m tall.
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Fossil evidence shows the genus formerly had a much wider range in the Northern Hemisphere, including Europe and central Asia until the late Pliocene ice ages, and somewhat earlier in North America.
The Indian awlking (Choaspes benjaminii) is one of the Lepidoptera whose caterpillars feed on Meliosma; they have been found on M. pungens, rhoifolia, M. rigida, and M. squamulata.
Meliosma garden plants
Fossil record
Fossil endocarps from the early Miocene of Meliosma wetteraviensis, have been found in the Czech part of the Zittau Basin. Stratigraphical range of this taxon is from the late Oligocene to Pliocene of Western Europe and Siberia.