Symplocos is a genus of
flowering plants in the order
Ericales. It contains about 300 species distributed in Asia and the Americas. Many species grow in humid tropical regions. This is sometimes considered to be the only genus in family
Symplocaceae.[2] Plants in this family are
shrubs and trees with white or yellow flowers.[3] The oldest fossils of the genus date to the lower
Eocene of Europe and North America, with the genus being present in Europe as late as the
Pliocene.[4][5]Fossil seeds of †Symplocos granulosa are frequent in
sediment rock layers of the
Late Oligocene to the
Late Miocene of
Denmark,
Germany,
Austria and
Poland. The fossil seeds are very similar to the seeds of the extan southern Chinese species Symplocos glandulifera and Symplocos sulcata. Fossil seeds of †Symplocos paucicostata are known from the
Middle Pliocene sediment rock layers in
Reuver, the
Netherlands and from the
Late Pliocene sediment rock layers in
northern Italy. The fossil seeds are very similar to the seeds of the extant
East Asian species Symplocos paniculata[6]
^A reconsideration of the diversity of Symplocos in the European Neogene on the basis of fruit morphology by D. H. Mai and Edoardo Martinetto - Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 140(1):1-26, June 2006 - DOI:10.1016/j.revpalbo.2006.02.001