Acer aff. monspessulanum

Denk, Thomas, Sami, Marco, Teodoridis, Vasilis & Martinetto, Edoardo, 2022, The Late Early Pleistocene Flora Of Oriolo, Faenza (Italy): Assembly Of The Modern Forest Biome, Fossil Imprint 78 (1), pp. 217-262 : 244

Acer aff. monspessulanum L., 1753

Text-fig. 14c, d

M a t e r i a l. Oriolo MSF 662, 641.

D e s c r i p t i o n. Leaf, simple, petiolate, 30–45 mm long, 40–60 mm wide, trilobed, lobes oblong triangular, lateral primary veins departing from central vein at wide angles, secondary venation brochidodromous, margin entire.

R e m a r k s. The lineage leading to A. monspessulanum might date back to the middle and Late Miocene, represented by the fossil-species A. pseudomonspessulanum UNGER, 1847 (Ströbitzer-Herrmann and Kovar-Eder 2002). This is in accordance with a dated phylogeny for Acer ( Renner et al. 2008) , which suggests differentiation in western Eurasian members of sect. Acer in the Late Miocene. The origin of the modern species A. monspessulanum might be of Pleistocene age, based on divergence times inferred for closely related western Eurasian species pairs of Acer .

Figures

Text-fig. 14. a, b: Acer aff. campestre. a: Oriolo MSF 664. b: Oriolo MSF 666. c, d: Acer aff. monspessulanum. c: Oriolo MSF 641. d: Oriolo MSF 662. e: Acer aff. opulus subsp. obtusatum Oriolo MSF 669. f, g: Acer aff. cappadocicum subsp. lobelii. f: Oriolo MSF 675. g: Oriolo MSF 631. h, i: Cornus sp. Oriolo MSF 655, two views of a strongly folded leaf impression. Scale bars 50 mm (a, e–g), 10 mm (b–d, h, i).