Editing Podocarpus latifolius (section)

==Taxonomy==
===Relationship to ''Podocarpus milanjianus''===
''Podocarpus latifolius'' is closely related to ''[[Podocarpus milanjianus]]''. Whether they are a single or two separate species is not settled. Some authorities treat the South African populations as ''Podocarpus latifolius'', and those elsewhere in Africa as ''Podocarpus milanjianus''. Others treat them as a single species, ''Podocarpus latifolius''.<ref name = tropical>Tropical Plants Database, Ken Fern. tropical.theferns.info. Accessed 8 March 2022.<tropical.theferns.info/viewtropical.php?id=Podocarpus+milanjianus></ref>

A 2020 study sampled DNA from ''Podocarpus latifolius'' and ''Podocarpus milanjianus'' trees, gathered from 88 sites across Africa. They concluded that all populations sampled constituted a single species: "As South African samples (''P. latifolius'') did not form a clade separated from the other clades (''P. milanjianus''), we confirm that the two taxa can be considered as synonyms." The authors concluded that the species originated in East Africa. The western populations, in the [[Cameroonian Highlands forests|highlands of Cameroon and Nigeria]] and in the Angolan highlands, diverged from the other populations around 300,000 years ago, and the species expanded to its current distribution pattern about 200,000 years ago.<ref name = Migliore>Jérémy Migliore, Anne-Marie Lézine, Olivier J Hardy, The recent colonization history of the most widespread Podocarpus tree species in Afromontane forests, Annals of Botany, Volume 126, Issue 1, 29 June 2020, Pages 73–83, https://doi.org/10.1093/aob/mcaa049</ref>