Eastern Asiatic Region

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Holarctic Kingdom and situated in temperate East Asia. It has been recognized as a natural floristic area since 1872 August Grisebach's volume Die Vegetation der Erde and later delineated by such geobotanists as Ludwig Diels, Adolf Engler (as Temperate Eastern region), Ronald Good (as Sino-Japanese Region) and Armen Takhtajan
.

The Eastern Asiatic Region is dominated by very old lineages of

Holarctic flora. Moreover, this floristic region wasn't significantly glaciated in the Pleistocene, and many relict Tertiary genera (such as Metasequoia glyptostroboides, ancestors of which were once common throughout the Northern Hemisphere
up to subpolar latitudes) found refuge here.

Endemic flora

The Eastern Asiatic Region endemic flora is characterized by:

Endemic families

  • about 30 endemic
    Helwingiaceae
    .

Endemic genera

Approximately eight other families are shared with tropical Southeast Asia (

Hamamelis, are shared with temperate North America, especially the North American Atlantic Region
.

Adjacent Regions

The Eastern Asiatic Region is bordered by the

Burma and northernmost Vietnam (parts of Tonkin
).

Subdivisions

According to a version of Takhtajan's classification, the Eastern Asiatic Region is further subdivided into 13 provinces; however, the number and

delimitation
of the southern provinces is disputed and varies even across Takhtajan's work.

  • Manchurian Province
two endemic genera ()
  • Sakhalin-Hokkaido Province
one endemic genus (
Miyakea), some endemic species (including Abies sachalinensis, Fragaria yezoensis
)
  • Japan-Korean Province
  • Ryukyu Province[1]
  • Volcanic-Bonin Province
  • Taiwanese Province
  • Northern Chinese Province
  • Central Chinese Province
  • Southeastern Chinese Province
  • Sikang-Yuennan Province
  • Northern Burmese Province
  • Eastern Himalayan Province
  • Khasi-Manipur Province

References

  1. ^ Nakamura, K., et al. (2009). Geohistorical and current environmental influences on floristic differentiation in the Ryukyu Archipelago, Japan. Journal of Biogeography 36:919–928. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2699.2008.02057.x

Cheng-yih Wu. Delineation and Unique Features of the Sino-Japanese Floristic Region. David E. Boufford and Hideaki Ohba (eds.), University of Tokyo Bulletin 37: Sino-Japanese Flora — Its Characteristics and Diversification. Tokyo: University of Tokyo, 1998.