page_title: Biodiversity of New Caledonia
section_title: Flora
hierarchical_section_title: Biodiversity of New Caledonia / Flora
caption_attribution_description: Fougère arborescente - Filicophyta - Île des Pins Nouvelle-Calédonie Photo personnelle libre de droits
context_page_description: The biodiversity of New Caledonia is of exceptional biological and paleoecological interest. It is frequently referred to as a biodiversity hotspot. The country is a large South Pacific archipelago with a total land area of more than 18,000 square kilometres. The terrain includes a variety of reefs, atolls, small islands, and a variety of topographical and edaphic regions on the largest island, all of which promote the development of unusually concentrated biodiversity. The region's climate is oceanic and tropical.
  New Caledonia is separated from the nearest mainland by more than 1,000 kilometres of open sea. Its isolation dates from at least the mid-Miocene, and possibly from the Oligocene, and that isolation has preserved its relict biota, fostering the evolution of wide ranges of endemic species.
context_section_description: New Caledonia's vegetation is distinguished by the world's highest rate of endemism: 5 families, 107 genera and 3,380 species. Among these are Acacia spirorbis, Dracophyllum species, Drosera neocaledonica, Grevillea gillivrayi, Neocallitropsis pancheri (Cupressaceae), and Austrotaxus spicatus (Taxaceae). Of the 44 species of Gymnosperm in the archipelago, 43 are endemic, including the unique parasite gymnosperm Parasitaxus ustus. The palm trees include 37 endemic species belonging to 16 genera. For the endangered Pritchardiopsis jennencyi, one only adult specimen is known. Three of the most primitive genera of Araliaceae also occur.
  Some New Caledonia plant communities are true living fossils. Flora contains many groups of plants that appear to be remnants of the Gondwanan flora in late Cretaceous - early Tertiary that once covered large parts of Australasia. The flora is exceedingly diverse and includes a level of endemism, per square kilometre, seen almost nowhere else on Earth. Three-quarters of native plant species on New Caledonia are endemic, but a quarter of those are "at risk" of decline or extinction.
  There are besides 454 species of marine macrophytes.
  In contrast, several groups that are well represented in the rest of tropics have only a few species on the Archipelago, such as Melastomataceae with one species, or are absent all together, e.g., Ochnaceae (sensu stricto) and Begoniaceae. Other families, such as Araceae, Boraginaceae, Brassicaceae, Commelinaceae, Gesneriaceae, and Zingiberaceae, are substantially under-represented.
  Five families are considered endemic: the Amborellaceae, the Oncothecaceae, the Phellinaceae that was often included in Aquifoliaceae, the Paracryphiaceae, and the Strasburgeriaceae, before placed in Ochnaceae.
  Some genera originated in the Gondwanian Antarctic flora. The most remarkable Gondwanian groups include the Cunoniaceae, the Myrtaceae, the Escalloniaceae and the Proteaceae. Due to this fact, the islands share many plant families with the Valdivian forest of South America, New Zealand, Tasmania and Australia, in habitats of cloud forest and temperate rainforest. Angiosperm flora colonized New Zealand and New Caledonia during the Cretaceous with genera such as Nothofagus, Forgesia, and Polyosma.
  Many other groups reached New Caledonia after it separated from Australia, which took place as part of a widespread movement of Indo-Malesian elements that expanded into Australasia during the early and middle Tertiary. Some of these newer flora speciated intensively and are now among the largest genera on the island. Examples include Phyllanthus, with 111 species, Psychotria with about 85 species, and Eugenia with around 37 species, Flindersia in the family Rutaceae, and Polyosma among others.
  Most Gymnosperm species are in rainforest. The Gymnosperms are more common in the poorer acid soils and in soils with an excess of magnesium and other phytotoxic elements derived from ultramafic rocks. 39 species are extant, while 27 are considered extinct. The Gymnosperms are more common on exposed ridges or next to rivers or creeks in floodplains. Their concentration is important at individual locations which provide lifesaving refugia, because environmental conditions make interspecific competition less severe.
  Four genera, Araucaria, Libocedrus, Prumnopitys and Retrophyllum that populate the subantarctic Pacific, have endemic species in New Caledonia. The genus Acmopyle (Podocarpaceae), currently present in New Caledonia and Fiji, is a fossil in Patagonia. There are 13 endemic species of Araucaria, including A. rulei and A. columnaris. The island shares some Araucaria species with Australia's Norfolk Island. Many, if not all current populations are relict.
  Angiosperms also include many groups of archaic characteristics that appear as vestiges of an old Gondwanan floral background.
  The bamboo genus Greslania is endemic to New Caledonia and comprises three or four species. They are found only in the southern part of the island where the soil contains heavy metals such as iron.
  Several genera, b
caption: Tree ferns on Île des Pins
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