Glyptostrobus ENDLICHER, 1847

Martinetto, Edoardo & Macaluso, Loredana, 2018, Quantitative Application Of The Whole-Plant Concept To The Messinian - Piacenzian Flora Of Italy, Fossil Imprint 74 (1 - 2), pp. 77-100 : 83

Genus Glyptostrobus ENDLICHER, 1847

Glyptostrobus europaeus whole - plant Glyptostrobus europaeus (BRONGNIART) UNGER (foliage shoots, cones, seeds); Glyptostroboxylon rudolphii DOLEZYCH et BURGH (wood); Taxodium - type pro parte (pollen)

Text-fig. 5a–h

M a t e r i a l. The Messinian sites mostly provided shoots, but infrequently. The Pliocene sites provided all types of macroremains, in large quantities in some fossil forests: Dunarobba, Fossano, La Cassa, Le Matole, Stura di Lanzo, Villafranca d’Asti – RDB Quarry ( Vassio et al. 2008, Martinetto et al. 2007 a, 2014, Bertini and Martinetto 2014, Forno et al. 2015, Macaluso et al. 2018). A proportion of the pollen grains of the Taxodium - type, frequent in most of the Messinian to Zanclean samples, was certainly produced by the Glyptostrobus europaeus whole - plant.

R e m a r k s. Glyptostrobus europaeus is a fossil-species name ( McNeill et al. 2012) first used for a shoot with cones from Greece (Miocene), preserved at the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle of Paris (specimen MNHN.F.1744, holotype), but its extension to a Whole-Plant Concept was already discussed by Vassio et al. (2008) because of the cooccurrence of stumps, roots, trunks, foliage shoots, cones and seeds ( Text-fig. 5a–f ) in swamp forest palaeoenvironments (line of evidence RCO). Some of the fossil pollen referred to the “ Taxodium -type” ( Text-fig. 5g ) in the Neogene of Italy was certainly produced by the “ Glyptostrobus europaeus whole-plant”. The habitus of this ancient plant can be reconstructed by integrating information on the large stumps and trunks, found in several fossil forests, with our knowledge of the modern relatives (line of evidence ISA), and also considering the phylogenetic framework ( Lu et al. 2014). The habitus of all the members of the Glyptostrobus phylogenetic clade is that of trees of medium to large height, of conical shape when young, with spirally arranged leaves and pear-shaped to globose cones. Therefore, the fossil Glyptostrobus europaeus was certainly a tree with such features, as illustrated in a pictorial reconstruction of the Dunarobba Fossil Forest ( Martinetto et al. 2014) in central Italy ( Text-fig. 5h ). Its small cones were pear-shaped.

Figures

Text-fig. 5. Identity plate of the Glyptostrobus europaeus whole-plant. a) fossil remains of a woody axis: stump from the Stura di Lanzo Fossil Forest showing lobed xylem in cross section, surrounded by darker bark remains. b) foliage shoots with attached cones from the same site. c, d, e) wood cross sections, Stura di Lanzo Fossil Forest, respectively transversal, tangential and radial section (from Vassio et al. 2008). f) seeds, the right hand specimen with a preserved wing from the same site, the wingless specimen from Dunarobba. g) Taxodium-type pollen from the Stura di Lanzo Fossil Forest, photo courtesy of Nela Doláková. h) reconstruction of the Glyptostrobus europaeus whole-plants which formed the Dunarobba Fossil Forest, drawing by Angelo Barili. Scale bar 10 mm for a, b; 50 µm for c–e, 1 mm for f and 20 µm for g.