The Antarctic beech group (Nothofagaceae) is an ancient type of tree, of significance to southern hemisphere botanical distribution.

Plants in the Nothofagaceae are currently found in southern South America (Chile, Argentina) and Australasia (east and southeast Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea and New Caledonia).

[1] Ferdinand von Mueller described the Antarctic beech in 1866, from material collected near the Bellinger River by Charles Moore.

[3] These trees typically grow to 25 m (80 ft) tall and have large trunks to 1 m in diameter with scaly, dark brown bark.

Chisholm wrote that the Antarctic Beech at Comboyne was "extremely rare, although many trees were undoubtedly destroyed during clearing."

[11][12] The Comboyne plateau is a scarp-bounded paleoplain located between the Mid North Coast of New South Wales and the Great Dividing Range.

It has since been shown that sexual reproduction may occur, but distribution in cool, isolated high-altitude environments at temperate and tropical latitudes is consistent with the theory that the species was more prolific in a cooler age.

[16] The pattern of distribution around the southern Pacific Ocean rim dates the dissemination of the genus to the time when Antarctica, Australia and South America were connected, the theoretical common land-mass referred to as Gondwana.