Alnus aff. barbata

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 : 234

Alnus aff. barbata C.A.MEY., 1831 ( Alnus aff. glutinosa subsp. barbata (C.A.MEY.) YALT., 1967)

Text-fig. 9h–j

M a t e r i a l. Oriolo MSF 850, 852, 987.

D e s c r i p t i o n. Leaf, seed cone; leaf, simple, petiolate, petiole 5 mm long, lamina broad elliptic, 55 mm long, 45 mm wide, base obtuse to shallowly cordate, secondary venation craspedodromous, basalmost secondaries departing from primary vein at right angle, following secondaries departing at steeper angles, abmedial veins usually departing from lower secondary veins, margin finely dentate; seed cone 15 mm long, 7 mm wide.

R e m a r k s. The higher number of secondary veins (ca. 10 pairs) and the lamina apex that is not retuse, as in subsp. glutinosa , suggest closer affinities with the extant Euxinina-Hyrcanian subsp. barbata . Again, the shift from the fossil-species A. cecropiifolia (ETTINGSH.) W.BERGER to the modern Alnus glutinosa s.l. is difficult to determine, as the morphology of these two taxa overlaps in the eastern modern range of A. glutinosa .

Figures

Text-fig. 9. a–e: Carya aff. minor. a: Terminal leaflet, Oriolo MSF 755. b: Oriolo MSF 755. c: Oriolo MSF 766. d: Oriolo MSF 768. e: Oriolo MSF 635. f, g: Pterocarya aff. fraxinifolia. f: Fruit, Oriolo MSF 632. g: Leaflet, Oriolo MSF 632a. h–j: Alnus aff. glutinosa subsp. barbata. h: Oriolo MSF 852. i: Oriolo MSF 850. j: Seed cone, Oriolo MSF 987. k–o: Corylus aff. avellana. k: Leaf, Oriolo MSF 841. l: Fruit, Oriolo MSF 1001. m: Fruit, Oriolo MSF 1022. n: Fruit, Oriolo MSF 1003. o: Fruit, Oriolo MSF 1022. Scale bars 50 mm (a–e, g–i), 10 mm (f, j–o).