Purpose The Cunoniaceae are a major component of the New Caledonian flora with 91 endemic species that are highly unusual in that multiple metals are hyperaccumulated in different species. This makes it an ideal model system for studying the nature of the hyperaccumulation phenomenon. Methods X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF) scanning of all herbarium collections of the Cunoniaceae was undertaken at the Herbarium of New Ca...

Aim In New Caledonia, relictual angiosperm lineages are over‐represented. However, the mechanisms responsible for such a distribution remain unclear. Two key hypotheses are that: (1) the diversity reflects adaptation to ultramafic substrates that ecologically filtered plant colonists; and (2) the diversity stems from wet climatic conditions that have persisted in New Caledonia during the late Quaternary while Australia and som...

Angiosperm hydraulic performance is crucially affected by the diameters of vessels, the water conducting conduits in the wood. Hydraulic optimality models suggest that vessels should widen predictably from stem tip to base, buffering hydrodynamic resistance accruing as stems, and therefore conductive path, increase in length. Data from 257 species (609 samples) show that vessels widen as predicted with distance from the stem a...

Aim I sotrema is a monophyletic subgenus of A ristolochia with species in E ast A sia and N orth/ C entral A merica. Earlier studies, based on limited sampling, suggested that the A sian and A merican species do not form two reciprocal sister clades. We reconstructed phylogenetic relationships within I sotrema to infer the biogeographical events that have shaped its present‐day distribution. Location E astern A sia, N orth A m...