Fagus

Beech is a genus of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to subtropical and temperate Eurasia and North America. There are 14 accepted species in two distinct subgenera, Englerianae Denk & G.W.Grimm and Fagus. The subgenus Englerianae is found only in East Asia, distinctive for its low branches, often made up of several major trunks with yellowish bark. The better known species of subgenus Fagus are native to Europe, western and eastern Asia and eastern North America.

Fagus

Own · Public Domain · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
beechPBDB
Sits inside
FagaceaePBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Angiospermae

Time the record covers

At least 100 million years on record.

The record covers at least 100.5 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 106.3 Mya to 0 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 1 of 161 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 0 of 161 occurrencesPaleocene — about 0 of 161 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 14 of 161 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 26 of 161 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 92 of 161 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 13 of 161 occurrencesPleistocene — about 13 of 161 occurrences108–105 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences105–101 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences101–98 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences69–65 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences65–61 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences61–58 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences58–54 Mya — about 1 occurrence54–51 Mya — about 2 occurrences51–47 Mya — about 2 occurrences47–43 Mya — about 3 occurrences43–40 Mya — about 3 occurrences40–36 Mya — about 2 occurrences36–33 Mya — about 4 occurrences33–29 Mya — about 6 occurrences29–25 Mya — about 10 occurrences25–22 Mya — about 10 occurrences22–18 Mya — about 4 occurrences18–14 Mya — about 7 occurrences14–11 Mya — about 50 occurrences11–7.2 Mya — about 19 occurrences7.2–3.6 Mya — about 17 occurrences3.6–0 Mya — about 20 occurrences100.5 Mya11.7 ka108 Mya0 Mya

161 occurrences of Fagus on record, most of them in the Miocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

161 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

30 formations

Itahana — 36.25°N, 138.50°EItahana — 36.50°N, 139.00°EItahana — 36.25°N, 139.00°EJohn Day — 44.64°N, 120.30°WJohn Day — 45.00°N, 120.20°WJohn Day — 44.14°N, 120.27°WJohn Day — 44.57°N, 119.63°WJohn Day — 44.30°N, 120.83°WJohn Day — 44.16°N, 120.46°WOgawa — 36.42°N, 138.08°ESepulcher — 44.00°N, 110.00°WSayama — 35.78°N, 139.38°EMotojuku — 36.25°N, 138.75°EDaido — 36.67°N, 138.83°ESeto Porcelain Clay — 35.00°N, 137.00°EYadagawa — 35.00°N, 136.00°ETatsunokuchi — 39.07°N, 141.18°EGuchengzi — 41.84°N, 123.90°EShoudai — 34.84°N, 135.72°EAllenby — 49.45°N, 120.57°WBovey Tracey Lignite — 50.58°N, 3.68°WSan Sebastian — 18.30°N, 66.88°WDakota — 39.20°N, 97.45°WAkima — 36.00°N, 139.00°EVenta del Moro-Villatoya — 39.48°N, 1.35°WKinkomanai — 44.54°N, 141.82°EFlorissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WVentana — 42.13°S, 71.33°WYalakdere — 40.61°N, 29.25°EChoptank — 38.16°N, 76.83°WSt. Marys — 38.16°N, 76.83°W

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The named rock units Fagus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 6 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 106 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Fagus and its relatives

Miocene

Where Fagus and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

880 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 56 sites for Fagus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

42 references

Each of the 161 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 30 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Fagus

Credit
Own
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Fagus was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itFagaceae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1753