Finschia

For the bird sometimes placed in the genus Finschia, see Pipipi.

Finschia
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
Clade:	Tracheophytes
Clade:	Angiosperms
Clade:	Eudicots
Order:	Proteales
Family:	Proteaceae
Subfamily:	Grevilleoideae
Tribe:	Embothrieae
Subtribe:	Hakeinae
Genus:	Finschia Warb. [1] [2] [3]
Type species
Finschia rufa
Species
See list

Finschia is a genus of four ^[1] recognised species of large trees, constituting part of the plant family Proteaceae. They grow naturally in New Guinea and its surrounding region, in habitats from lowland rainforests to steep highland forests. ^{[2] [3] [4]}

Description

Members of the genus Finschia are trees which grow up to 35 m (115 ft) tall. They often have large stilt roots growing out from up the trunk, sometimes from as high up as 1.8 m (6 ft) off the ground. ^{[2] [3] [4]}

F. chloroxantha is the most widely distributed, occuring in Papua New Guinea and West Papua, the Bismarck Archipelago, the Solomon Islands, the Aru Islands, Palau and Vanuatu. The three other species, F. carrii , F. ferruginiflora and F. rufa are found only on the island of New Guinea.

Taxonomy

The genus Finschia was first formally described in Botanische Jahrbücher fur Systematik, Pflanzengeschichte und Pflanzengeographie in 1891. It was named after German explorer Friedrich Hermann Otto Finsch. ^[5]

Published scientific morphology and anatomy observations places Finschia within the subtribe Hakeinae (tribe Embothrieae) and correlates the genus most closely with some species of Grevillea , then after that with Hakea . ^{[6] [7]} Dutch botanist H. O. Sleumer included them within the genus Grevillea in 1939 and in his 1958 Flora Malesiana (Proteaceae) description as again Finschia. ^{[2] [4]} In 2009 the first step was reported in the still early studies of their genetics. ^{[8] [9]}

The official national herbaria in Lae, Papua New Guinea holds numerous specimens of undescribed, potentially new species. ^{[2] [3]}

People from the region of New Guinea working professionally in government or science have published written reports of some of the traditional knowledge and uses of these species. The cooking and eating of the seeds after their planting and establishment as crops has been described in published written form in reports, articles and books. ^{[2] [3] [4]}

Species

There are currently four species accepted by Plants of the World Online, published by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. ^[1]

Species name	Distribution	IUCN status [10]
Finschia carrii (Sleumer) C.T.White	New Guinea
Finschia chloroxantha Diels	New Guinea, Bismarck Archipelago, Solomon Islands, Aru Islands, Palau and Vanuatu
Finschia ferruginiflora C.T.White	New Guinea
Finschia rufa Warb.	New Guinea

References

1. "Finschia Warb". Plants of the World Online. Retrieved 10 March 2026.
2. White, Cyril T. (July 1949). "Finschia—a genus of "nut" trees of the Southwest Pacific". Pacific Science. (Repository page linking to PDF full text). 3 (3). University of Hawai'i Press: 187–194. hdl:10125/8929. ISSN   0030-8870.
3. Foreman, Don B. (1995). "Proteaceae". In Conn, Barry J. (ed.). Handbooks of the flora of Papua New Guinea. (Digitised, online, freely available via www.pngplants.org). Vol. 3. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. pp. 221–270. Retrieved 22 Mar 2013.
4. Sleumer, Hermann O. (1958). "Finschia". Flora Malesiana (Digitised, online). Series I, Spermatophyta : Flowering Plants. Vol. 5 Proteaceae. Leiden, Netherlands: Rijksherbarium / Hortus Botanicus, Leiden University. pp. 159–164. Retrieved 27 Mar 2013.
5. Engler, Adolf (1881). Botanische Jahrbücher fur Systematik, Pflanzengeschichte und Pflanzengeographie (in German). Vol. 13. Schweizerbart [etc.] pp. 297, 298.
6. Weston, Peter H.; Barker, Nigel P. (2006). "A new suprageneric classification of the Proteaceae, with an annotated checklist of genera". Telopea. 11 (3): 314–344. doi: 10.7751/telopea20065733 .
7. Catling, D.M. (2010). "Vegetative anatomy of Finschia Warb. and its place in Hakeinae (Proteaceae)". Telopea. 12 (4): 491–504. doi: 10.7751/telopea20105840 .
8. Sauquet, Hervé; Weston, Peter H.; et al. (6 Jan 2009). "Contrasted patterns of hyperdiversification in Mediterranean hotspots". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 106 (1): 221–225. Bibcode:2009PNAS..106..221S. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0805607106 . PMC   2629191 . PMID   19116275.
9. Mast, Austin R.; Milton, Ethan F.; et al. (1 Mar 2012). "Time-calibrated phylogeny of the woody Australian genus Hakea (Proteaceae) supports multiple origins of insect-pollination among bird-pollinated ancestors". American Journal of Botany. 99 (3): 472–487. doi: 10.3732/ajb.1100420 . PMID   22378833.
10. "Finschia - IUCN Red List" . Retrieved 10 March 2026.

External links

• Finschia rufa illustration in Flora Malesiana.