FR Fossil Record FR Foss. Rec. 2193-0074 Wiley Göttingen, Germany 10.1002/mmng.19980010111 China's Beech Forests in the Pre-Quaternary Yu-Sheng L. 2 1 Wei-Ming W. 2 Momohara A. 3 Museum of Natural History, Institute of Palaeontology, Invalidenstrasse 43, 10115 Berlin, Germany Department of Palynology, Nanjing Institute of Geology & Palaeontology, Academia Sinica, Nanjing 210008, China Department of Environmental Studies, Chiba University, 648 Matsudo, Matsudo City, Chiba, 271, Japan 01 01 1998 1 1 151 165 Copyright: © 1998 L. Yu-Sheng et al. 1998 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This article is available from https://fr.copernicus.org/articles/1/151/1998/fr-1-151-1998.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://fr.copernicus.org/articles/1/151/1998/fr-1-151-1998.pdf

<i>Fagus</i> in China is never dominant in Late Cretaceous and Tertiary floras although it might reach its highest diversity in the Miocene. The genus <i>Fagus</i> was more widely distributed during the Palaeogene than in the Neogene. Furthermore, the ecological requirements of <i>Fagus</i> in the Palaeogene seem much broader than those in the Neogene onwards. This is because the Palaeogene floras containing <i>Fagus</i> lived in various conditions from an arid and hot climate to a humid and warm habitat. Additionally, <i>Fagus</i> then coexisted with many kinds of hygrophilous, thermophilous and xerophilous plants. However, the wide distribution, broad ecological adaptation and species composition changed greatly in the Neogene. The Neogene <i>Fagus</i>-containing floras are slightly more similar to the modern beech forests than the Palaeogene ones, although a big difference remains. Chinese fossil data document the post-Tertiary development of the modern beech forests. <br><br> doi:<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/mmng.19980010111" target="_blank">10.1002/mmng.19980010111</a>