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Abstract Detail



Recent Topics Posters

Rae, M. Madeleine [1], Rothwell, Gar [1], Stockey, Ruth [2].

Anatomically preserved Nilssoniopteris (Bennettitales) from the Lower Cretaceous of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.

The Bennettitales is an extinct order of cycadophytic plants that characterizes floras throughout the world from the Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous, and that is often implicated in the origin of flowering plants.  The extremely diverse Lower Cretaceous (Valanginian) flora of anatomically preserved plants at Apple Bay, Vancouver Island, Canada has yielded two types of bennettitalean seed cones, Foxeoidea connatum and Williamsonia sp. and two undescribed species of bennettitalean foliage.  One of the foliage species has an entire margin and represents a new species of the genus Nilssoniopteris.  Specimens are anatomically preserved in carbonate marine concretions, and are exposed in both section and surface views.  Leaves are up to 1.5 cm wide with a distinctly corrugated adaxial surface, a prominent midrib, and lateral veins that fork rarely.  Venation of the midrib forms crescent shaped ring of collateral bundles with xylem oriented to the inside of the ring.  Lateral vein density ranges 12-15 per cm.  Laminae have an adaxial hypodermis, one to two layers of palisade mesophyll, spongy mesophyll toward abaxial epidermis, a distinct bundle sheath, and bundle sheath extensions.  Epidermal cells show prominently sinuous margins.  Leaves are hypostomatic, with randomly arranged syndetocheilic stomata between veins on the abaxial surface.  This is only the second species of anatomically preserved Nilssoniopteris, the only anatomically preserved species with an entire margin, the first anatomically preserved species from North America, and the first species of Nilssoniopteris with a corrugated adaxial surface.

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1 - Ohio University, Department of Environmental and Plant Biology, Athens, OH, 45701, USA
2 - Oregon State University, Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, 2082 Cordley Hall, Corvallis, OR, 97331, USA

Keywords:
Anatomy
Bennettitales
Leaves
Early Cretaceous
Nilssoniopteris.

Presentation Type: Recent Topics Poster
Session: P
Location: Grand Salon A - D/Riverside Hilton
Date: Monday, July 29th, 2013
Time: 5:30 PM
Number: PRT005
Abstract ID:1291
Candidate for Awards:None


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