Species
+

Nothofagus fusca (Hook.f.) Oerst.

clinker beech, red beech, red-birch

Climate known 63 photographs
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Nothofagus fusca, commonly known as red beech, is a species of southern beech, endemic to New Zealand, occurring on both the North and South Island. It is generally found on lower hills and inland valley floors where soil is fertile and well drained. In New Zealand the species is called Fuscospora fusca.

Text from Wikipedia, “Nothofagus fusca”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Nothofagus

Nothofagus, also known as the southern beeches, is a genus of 43 species of trees and shrubs native to the Southern Hemisphere, found across southern South America and eastern and southeast Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, and New Caledonia. The species are ecological dominants in many temperate forests in these regions. Some species are reportedly naturalised in Germany and Great Britain. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Nothofagus”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Nothofagaceae
Described by
(Hook.f.) Oerst.
Native to
New Zealand North, New Zealand South
Wild records
1870 in range· 219 open

At a glance

Warmest month
18°C
Jan, mean day; nights 9 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1857mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jun 182 mm (CHELSA)
Light
10–40DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (November to June in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 1857 mm a year, wettest June at 182 mm, driest February at 114 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 10 to 40 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -3.9 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Fagus fusca Hook.f.; Fuscospora fusca (Hook.f.) Heenan & Smissen; Nothofagus fusca var. fusca.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (November to June in the northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (1338 mm of 1857 mm) takes 8 months, May to December. Mean temperature moves 9.9 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; shifted six months for a northern-hemisphere collection: November to June.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 1857 mm a year, wettest June at 182 mm, driest February at 114 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1857 mm a year at the habitat, 1338 mm of it May to December. Wettest month June at 182 mm, driest February at 114 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1354 mm to 2919 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 10 to 40 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 10 to 40 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 8, the highest 90th-percentile month 44).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -3.9 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -3.9 °C, the absolute minimum -5.9 °C, about 51 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 25.9 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 0.7 °C in July (across the envelope cells -3.1 °C to 4.1 °C), warmest day 18.2 °C in January (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -3.9 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 64 to 69% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 7 °C in Jul to 18 °C in Jan; mean night from 1 °C in Jul to 10 °C in Feb. The cold quarter, Jun to Aug, is the three months around the coldest night. 1857 mm of rain a year, most in Jun. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 798 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -5.9 °C and the 99th-percentile day 25.9 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-10°10°20°30°frost25.9° 99th-percentile day (undated)-5.9° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200250300mm rainDLI 10–40RH 64–69 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 798 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C18 / 15–2018 / 15–2016 / 13–1813 / 10–1510 / 7–138 / 4–107 / 3–108 / 4–1010 / 7–1212 / 9–1414 / 11–1616 / 13–18
Night °C9 / 7–1210 / 7–128 / 5–116 / 3–94 / 1–72 / -2–51 / -3–41 / -2–43 / -1–64 / 1–76 / 3–98 / 5–11
Rain mm131 / 93–241114 / 83–172134 / 101–203140 / 103–219155 / 113–246182 / 128–273181 / 117–240164 / 119–241165 / 112–272178 / 120–299149 / 101–251164 / 115–283
DLI40 / 38–4434 / 32–3727 / 25–2919 / 16–2112 / 10–1410 / 8–1111 / 10–1216 / 14–1823 / 20–2530 / 27–3337 / 34–4039 / 36–43
RH %64 / 61–6765 / 62–6866 / 63–6867 / 64–6968 / 65–7169 / 64–7268 / 64–7168 / 65–7167 / 64–7067 / 63–6965 / 62–6865 / 62–68

Each figure is the median across the 798 grid cells holding the 1869 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 2585:7128 (-39.275, 176.425). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -5.9 °C, 1st-percentile night -3.9 °C, 99th-percentile day 25.9 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 798 distinct grid cells holding the 1869 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2585:7128 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell -39.50_176.250, lapse-corrected +261 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 943 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeNew Zealand North, New Zealand South
Kew's description“tree” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker-41.798, 172.321 · in the densest population, 1026 records (55% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1870 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 219 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 85 km away. 1 record outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 1 in-range record is placed to worse than 10 km and stays on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 1870 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Nothofagus fuscaNothofagus fuscaNothofagus fuscaNothofagus fuscaNothofagus fuscaNothofagus fuscaNothofagus fuscaNothofagus fusca

Photographs: (c) edmonds5, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Joe Dillon, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Ian Adams, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); (c) Richard Littauer, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Julia Palmer, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Nothofagus fusca, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Optimality and nitrogen allocation in a tree canopy
D. Y. Hollinger (1996) · Tree Physiology
Late eocene to early Miocene vegetation and climate history of New Zealand
David T. Pocknall (1989) · Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand
Distribution and response of rats Rattus rattus, R. exulans to seedfall in New Zealand beech forests
Carolyn M. King, Henrik Møller (1997) · Pacific Conservation Biology
Leaf dark respiration as a function of canopy position in Nothofagus fusca trees grown at ambient and elevated CO2 partial pressures for 5 years
Kevin L. Griffin, David T. Tissue, Matthew H. Turnbull, W. Schuster (2001) · Functional Ecology
Late Quaternary Evolution of a Fjord Environment in Preservation Inlet, New Zealand
Richard A. Pickrill, J. Fenner, Mathew S. McGlone (1992) · Quaternary Research
Constraints on light interception efficiency due to shoot architecture in broad-leaved Nothofagus species
Ülo Niinemets, Alessandro Cescatti, Rochelle Christian (2004) · Tree Physiology
Comparison of Micropore Distribution in Cell Walls of Softwood and Hardwood Xylem
Lloyd Donaldson, Mathew J. Cairns, Stefan Hill (2018) · PLANT PHYSIOLOGY
Carbohydrate analysis of beech honeydew
William D. Grant, Jacqueline R. Beggs (1989) · New Zealand Journal of Zoology
Late Quaternary movement on White Creek Fault, South Island, New Zealand
Kelvin Berryman (1980) · New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 12 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.