Shrubs and trees with lauroid leaves mostly, with bisexual flowers, usually with a large edible berry ovoid or globose, and seated directly on the pedicel. The seeds are dispersed by animals and birds. They have a broad distribution across South East
Asia,
Australia and into the western
Pacific Ocean.
Endiandra is a genus of
evergreen trees belonging to the Laurel family,
Lauraceae. Fossils show that before
glaciations, when the climate was more humid and mild, species were distributed more widely. They are distributed in Asia, from India to Indochina, China, Malaysia, Australia, and Pacific islands, with 38 species endemic to Australia. In Australia, they are often used as screen trees due to the thick foliage of a number of their species. Quite a few of the Australian species are rare, such as
Endiandra globosa,
Endiandra muelleri subsp. bracteata and
Endiandra floydii. The drying of the area during the glaciations caused
Endiandra to retreat to the mildest climate refuges, including oceanic and southern islands and wetter mountain areas. With the end of the
last glacial period, Endiandra recovered some of its former range. They are mostly
relicts of a type of
vegetation disappeared, which originally covered much of the mainland of
Australia, South America, Antarctica, South Africa, North America and other lands when their
climate were more
humid and warm. Although warm
Cloud forests disappeared during the glaciations, they re-colonized large areas every time the weather was favorable again. Most of the cloud forests are believed to have retreated and advanced during successive geological eras, and their species adapted to warm and wet gradually retreated and advanced, replaced by more
cold-tolerant or
drought-tolerant
sclerophyll plant communities. Many of the then existing species became extinct because they could not cross the barriers posed by new oceans, mountains and deserts, but others found refuge as species relict in coastal areas and Islands. Some species are well adapted to tropical dry or deciduous forests, including
monsoon forests and
dry monsoon forest. Some
Endiandra present a
convergent evolution due to ecological or physical drivers toward a similar solution, including
analogous structures with species adapted to different environments, for example with plants adapted to
Laurel forest habitat. These
Endiandra resemble other genera in the family
Lauraceae, and their leaves are lauroid type with berries eaten and dispersed mostly by birds. Others are even adapted to very wet media. Some species are endangered and others have a very specialized ecological niche and consequently occupy small or specific areas. Although the majority of the species are the products of
parapatric speciation, some groups have an ancient
Gondwanan distribution and some groups responded to favourable climatic periods as opportunistic species and expanded across the available habitat, these last groups occur across wide distribution with close relatives and few species, indicating the recent divergence of these species. Many species are having edible fruits. Some birds and bats that are specialised frugivores tend to eat the whole fruit and regurgitate seeds intact, which functions for
Biological dispersal. Others swallow the fruit and pass the seed intact through the gut. An incomplete list of birds that rely heavily on the fruit for their diet include members of the families
Cotingidae,
Columbidae,
Trogonidae,
Turdidae, and
Toucan. The fruits are an important food source for
Palaeognathae highly dependent.
Seed dispersal of various species in the genus is also carried out by
fishes and big and small mammals as
Pachyderms,
Bovids,
monkeys,
arboreal rodents,
porcupines, or
possums. ==Species==