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Myrtineoxylon gen. nov.: The first fossil wood record of the tribe Myrteae (Myrtaceae) in eastern Asia
Author(s) -
Oskolski Alexei A.,
Feng Xin-Xin,
Jin Jian-Hua
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
taxon
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.819
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1996-8175
pISSN - 0040-0262
DOI - 10.12705/624.7
Subject(s) - myrtaceae , tribe , fossil wood , tracheid , genus , perforation , botany , paleontology , biology , xylem , materials science , sociology , anthropology , metallurgy , punching
The new genus and species Myrtineoxylon maomingensis is described from the Late Eocene Youganwo Formation of Maoming Basin, South China. It is the first record of fossil wood from eastern Asia assigned to Myrtaceae. The combination of solitary vessels, simple perforation plates, alternate vestured intervessel pits, bordered vessel–ray pits, vasicentric tracheids, ground tissue fibre–tracheids, diffuse and diffuse–in–aggregate parenchyma in 3–8 cells strands, and 1–3–seriate, strongly heterocellular rays, and absence of crystals is suggestive of a position of the fossil in the tribe Myrteae (informal "Australasian group"), a basal lineage in Myrtaceae. This is the first fossil record from eastern Asia and from all of Eurasia confidently referred to this tribe.