''Oxalis magellanica'' or snowdrop wood-sorrel is an ''

Oxalis ''Oxalis'' ( (American English) or (British English)) is a large genus of flowering plants in the wood-sorrel family Oxalidaceae, comprising over 550 species. The genus occurs throughout most of the world, except for the Polar region, polar are ...

'' species found in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

, and

Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...

.Gardner, A. G. (2013). ''Using molecular phylogenetics to unravel morphological shifts, niche transitions, and geographic expansion at two different scales in the plant genus'' Oxalis ''(oxalidaceae)'' (Order No. 3588366). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (1428164964). It was first described in 1789. It blooms from fall to spring with white flowers. Its native distribution is puzzling given the wide geographic separation between its populations in

Oceania Oceania (, , ) is a region, geographical region that includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Spanning the Eastern Hemisphere, Eastern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres, Oceania is estimated to have a land area of ...

and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

. It, along with other members of a

clade A clade (), also known as a monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that are monophyletic – that is, composed of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants – on a phylogenetic tree. Rather than the English term, ...

within the

section Section, Sectioning or Sectioned may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Section (music), a complete, but not independent, musical idea * Section (typography), a subdivision, especially of a chapter, in books and documents ** Section sign ...

''Oxalis'' that share a

common ancestor Common descent is a concept in evolutionary biology applicable when one species is the ancestor of two or more species later in time. All living beings are in fact descendants of a unique ancestor commonly referred to as the last universal comm ...

dating back to roughly 30 Ma, have a strangely complex geographic distribution. This is especially perplexing given that the connection between Oceania and South America via

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...

disappeared 35 million years ago, before the estimated

diversification Diversification may refer to: Biology and agriculture * Genetic divergence, emergence of subpopulations that have accumulated independent genetic changes * Agricultural diversification involves the re-allocation of some of a farm's resources to n ...

of the clade.

References

External links

* *

magellanica (Latin: '"Southern Land'") was a hypothetical continent first posited in antiquity and which appeared on maps between the 15th and 18th centuries. Its existence was not based on any survey or direct observation, but rather on the idea that ...

Plants described in 1789 {{Oxalidales-stub