Fagaceae
Deciduous or evergreen, monoecious trees or rarely shrubs. Buds with imbricate scales. Lvs alternate, simple, penninerved; stipules caducous. Fls usually axillary on young shoots; perianth (calyx) 4-6-(7)-lobed, imbricate; ♂ fls in slender spikes (catkins); ♀ fls solitary or in groups of 3, sometimes at base of ♂ spike. Corolla 0. Stamens generally as many as or twice as many as calyx lobes, occasionally to c. 40; filaments free, filiform. ♀ fls within an involucre of imbricate bracts, often numerous; perianth adnate to ovary. Ovary inferior, 3-6-celled, and each cell with 2 ovules. Styles as many as ovary cells. Fr. a 1-seeded nut; involucre cupulate, free or adnate to and partly or completely enclosing the fr., often hard, tuberculate or spiny. Seed 1, non-endospermic.
Key
7 genera, 700-800 spp., mainly temperate and subtropical N. Hemisphere, some in temperate and subtropical S. Hemisphere.
In addition to the genera of Fagaceae found wild in N.Z. 2 further genera are commonly represented in parks and gardens, each by a single sp. Fagus sylvatica L., European beech, is distinguished from indigenous Nothofagus spp. by its large lvs and deciduous habit. Castanea sativa Miller, sweet chestnut, is distinguished by the erect ♂ catkins and prickly cupule which completely encloses the fr.
Two large-leaved, deciduous, southern Andean Nothofagus spp. have been recorded as regenerating in the vicinity of planted trees at Pebbly Hills State Forest, Southland. N. obliqua (Mirbel) Blume, roblé, has lvs with 8-11 pairs of veins, glabrous or nearly so below, and frs with short, simple appendages; N. alpina (Poeppig et Endl.) Oersted [as N. procera (Poeppig et Endl.) Oersted], rauli, has lvs hairy below, with 14-20 pairs of veins, and fr. with long, branched, antler-like processes.
