disjunct

In the context of a population (local stand) of a species, disjunct refers to a population that is widely separated from other populations of the same species. For example, many species in Nova Scotia's Coastal Plain Flora are found in southwest Nova Scotia and on the U.S seaboard from Massachusetts south, but not in-between, i.e., not elsewhere in N.S. or in New Brunswick, Maine and New Hampshire.

The term is also applied to higher taxa, e.g., the 4 species of Hamamelis (witch hazel) have a disjunct distribution globally. Two occur in eastern North America (H. vernalis in the Ozarks and H. virginiana which occurs from eastern Canada to Mexico) and two in eastern Asia (H. mollis in China and H. japonica in Japan). This eastern North America - Asian disjunct distribution is shared by species in a number of other genera.