Podocarpaceae

Podocarpaceae is a large family of mainly southern hemisphere conifers, known in English as podocarps, comprising about 201 species of trees and shrubs. It contains 20 genera if Phyllocladus is included and Manoao and Sundacarpus are accepted. The family achieved its maximum diversity in the Cenozoic, making it one of the most diverse in the southern hemisphere.

The family is a classic member of the Antarctic flora, with its main centres of diversity in Australasia, particularly New Caledonia, Tasmania, and New Zealand, and to a slightly lesser extent Malesia and South America (primarily in the Andes Mountains). Several genera extend north of the equator into Indochina and the Philippines. Podocarpus reaches as far north as southern Japan and southern China in Asia, and Mexico in the Americas, and Nageia into southern China and southern India. Two genera also occur in sub-Saharan Africa, the widespread Podocarpus and the endemic Afrocarpus.

Parasitaxus usta is unique as the only known parasitic gymnosperm. It occurs on New Caledonia, where it is parasitic on another member of the Podocarpaceae, Falcatifolium taxoides.

Except for the two genera Pherosphaera and Saxegothaea, all members of Podocarpaceae have fleshy seed cones, which appears to be an ancestral trait.

The genus Phyllocladus is sister to the Podocarpaceae sensu stricto. It is treated by some botanists in its own family, the Phyllocladaceae.