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- Title
EARLY OLIGOCENE CALLITRIS AND FITZROYA (CUPRESSACEAE) FROM TASMANIA<sup>1</sup>.
- Authors
Paull, Rosemary; Hill, Robert S.
- Abstract
This paper documents Early Oligocene fossilized foliage and ovulate cones from Lea River. Tasmania and identifies them as belonging to two extant southern hemisphere Cupressaceae genera, Callitris and Fitzmya. Most importantly, it sheds some light on evolutionary trends within Callitris, a genus with numerous extant Australian species and two extant New Caledonian species. Callitris has a very poor fossil record and. because of the present absence of a molecular data set that includes all species, its phylogeny remains somewhat ambiguous. Although Fitzmya foliage has previously been described from a number of Tasmanian sites, this is the first recording of fertile material. The ovulate cones of the Callitris and Fitzmya macrofossils are characterized by bract-scale complexes in two whorls of three and are subtended by scale-like leaves in whorls of three. The fossilized foliage specimens consist of scale-like leaves in whorls of three. These morphological characteristics are only exhibited by three extant southern hemisphere cupressaceous genera, Callitris, Actinostrobus, and Fitzmya. The assignment of the fossils to extinct Callitris and Fitzmya species is made by comparisons with species from these three extant genera. Although much of the Lea River flora are wet rainforest taxa. the Callitris fossils have characteristics of both wet- and dry-adapted extant species.
- Subjects
TASMANIA; OLIGOCENE paleopedology; LEAVES; CYPRESS pines; FOSSILS
- Publication
American Journal of Botany, 2010, Vol 97, Issue 5, p809
- ISSN
0002-9122
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.3732/ajb.0900374