Nothofagus cunninghamii, the Myrtle Beech, is an evergreen

Evergreen

In botany, an evergreen plant is a plant that has leaves in all seasons. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which completely lose their foliage during the winter or dry season.There are many different kinds of evergreen plants, both trees and shrubs...

 tree native to Victoria

Victoria (Australia)

Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....

 and Tasmania

Tasmania

Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. It grows mainly in the temperate rainforest

Rainforest

Rainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions based on a minimum normal annual rainfall of 1750-2000 mm...

s. It is not related to the Myrtle family

Myrtaceae

The Myrtaceae or Myrtle family are a family of dicotyledon plants, placed within the order Myrtales. Myrtle, clove, guava, feijoa, allspice, and eucalyptus belong here. All species are woody, with essential oils, and flower parts in multiples of four or five...

.

These trees typically grow to 30–40 m tall and have large trunks with scaly, dark brown bark. Maximum height is about 55 m. The leaves

Leaf

A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant, as defined in botanical terms, and in particular in plant morphology. Foliage is a mass noun that refers to leaves as a feature of plants....

 are simple and alternate, growing 1-1,5 cm long, in Victoria up to 2 cm long. The leaf color is dark green, with new growth brilliant red, pink or orange in spring. They are triangular with irregular minute teeth. The flower

Flower

A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs...

s are inconspicuous yellow-green catkin

Catkin

A catkin or ament is a slim, cylindrical flower cluster, with inconspicuous or no petals, usually wind-pollinated but sometimes insect pollinated . They contain many, usually unisexual flowers, arranged closely along a central stem which is often drooping...

s. The fruit

Fruit

In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...

 is a 6 mm, capsule containing three small winged nuts

Nut (fruit)

A nut is a hard-shelled fruit of some plants having an indehiscent seed. While a wide variety of dried seeds and fruits are called nuts in English, only a certain number of them are considered by biologists to be true nuts...

.

Occasionally you will see large orange-like fruiting bodies of a fungus protruding from the trunk.

Uses and cultivation

It is an excellent cabinetry timber which is hard with strong, tough, close grain. It is a soft pink, often figured and can be polished to a fine sheen. Used for flooring, joinery

Joinery

Joinery may refer to:* Woodworking joints or other types of mechanical joints * The work of the joiner, the fabrication and installation of fittings in buildings with materials such as wood and aluminum * In Australia and New Zealand, a joinery is also the generic term for a business which...

, cog

Cog

Cog may refer to:* A part of a gear system* Cog , a small sailing vessel* A tenon that extends all the way through another piece of wood, in joinery* The evil robots in Toontown Online...

s of wheels, and furniture. It is harvested from old growth forest

Old growth forest

An old-growth forest is a forest that has attained great age , and thereby exhibits unique ecological features. An old growth forest has also usually reached a climax community...

 but the vast majority of the timber is left on the ground as it grows with the heavily harvested mountain ash

Eucalyptus regnans

Eucalyptus regnans, known variously by the common names Mountain Ash, Victorian Ash, Swamp Gum, Tasmanian Oak or Stringy Gum, is a species of Eucalyptus native to southeastern Australia, in Tasmania and Victoria...

. Density 750–880 kg/m³.

N. cunninghamii is a fairly robust species, requiring around 900 mm of rain spread throughout the year. It grows best in the deep red mountain soils of Victoria

Victoria (Australia)

Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....

, or in highly organic soils. It can grow in full shade, albeit slowly, through to full sun, given enough water. It is easily grown from fresh seed, germinating in a few weeks. Cuttings can be struck, although they tend to perform less well than seed grown plants. Cultivated specimens survive temperatures of 45 °C down to −7 °C; though it is known that trees growing in the mountains can withstand lower temperatures at least to −15 °C and no source provenance selection has been made for cultivation from there. Trees cultivated in western Scotland are stout and hardy.

Both N. cunninghamii and the closely related N. moorei

Nothofagus moorei

Nothofagus moorei, is an important Gondwana relict of the rainforests of the southern hemisphere. It occurs in wet, fire free areas at high altitude in eastern Australia....

 are excellent hosts for epiphyte

Epiphyte

An epiphyte is a plant that grows upon another plant non-parasitically or sometimes upon some other object , derives its moisture and nutrients from the air and rain and sometimes from debris accumulating around it, and is found in the temperate zone and in the...

s.

Threats

Myrtle wilt, a parasitic fungus, attacks Myrtle beech when the air-borne spores settle on open wounds. It is a natural disease of N. cunninghamii, but in recent years it has become a serious problem due to poor logging practices.

Myrtle Beech forests can not survive strong fire, and must re-establish from neighbouring areas. They can, however, survive light fires, by regenerating from seed, or sometimes vegetatively from basal

Anatomical terms of location

Standard anatomical terms of location are designations employed in science that deal with the anatomy of animals to avoid ambiguities that might otherwise arise. They are not language-specific, and thus require no translation...

 epicormic shoot

Epicormic shoot

An epicormic shoot is a shoot growing from an epicormic bud which lies underneath the bark of a trunk, stem, or branch of a plant.-Epicormic buds:...

s. Generally Myrtle Beech forests only form once a wet sclerophyll

Sclerophyll

Sclerophyll is the term for a type of vegetation that has hard leaves and short internodes . The word comes from the Greek sclero and phyllon ....

forest reaches maturity, taking several hundred years to do so.