Litsea cubeba

Litsea cubeba is a species of evergreen tree in the family Lauraceae. It is a shrub that grows up to 5–12 meters high. It is sometimes referred to by the common names the aromatic litsea, may chang, mountain pepper, mujiangzi or douchijiang in Mandarin and maqaw (馬告) by the Atayal of Taiwan. It produces a fruit which is processed for its lemony essential oil. The oil can also be extracted from the leaf, but this is considered to be lower in quality. The timber is sometimes used for making furniture and crafts. Plant parts are also used in medicine.

Litsea cubeba

LiChieh Pan / Flickr user: plj.johnny ( https://www.flickr.com/photos/plj/ ) · CC BY 2.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
LitseaPBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Angiospermae

Time the record covers

At least 2.7 million years on record.

The record covers at least 5.333 Mya to 2.58 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 11.63 Mya to 774 ka.

Miocene — about 1 of 2 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 2 occurrencesPleistocene — about 1 of 2 occurrencesPleistocene12–11 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–10 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences10–9.8 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences9.8–9.4 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences9.4–9.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences9.0–8.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.6–8.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.2–7.8 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.8–7.4 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.4–7.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.0–6.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences6.6–6.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences6.2–5.8 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.8–5.4 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.4–5.0 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.6–2.3 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.3–1.9 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.9–1.5 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.5–1.1 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.1–669 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences5.333 Mya2.58 Mya12.1 Mya274 ka

2 occurrences of Litsea cubeba on record. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

2 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

2 formations

Bangmai — 23.90°N, 100.02°EChangsheling — 23.75°N, 106.92°E

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The named rock units Litsea cubeba has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Found in the same rock

109 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Litsea cubeba, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

1 reference

Each of the 2 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Litsea cubeba

Credit
LiChieh Pan / Flickr user: plj.johnny ( https://www.flickr.com/photos/plj/ )
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Litsea cubeba was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itLitsea through timeThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Loureiro 1806