Eastern Asiatic Region
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
- three to six hundred endemic .
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
).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 (Microbiota, Omphalothrix), many endemic species (including Abies holophylla, Picea koraiensis, Ulmus macrocarpa, Crataegus pinnatifida, Vitis amurensis)
- two endemic genera (
- Sakhalin-Hokkaido Province
- one endemic genus (Miyakea), some endemic species (including Abies sachalinensis, Fragaria yezoensis)
- one endemic genus (
- 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
- ^ 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.