Parrotia aff. persica (DC.)

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 : 225

publication ID

https://doi.org/ 10.37520/fi.2022.009

persistent identifier

https://treatment.plazi.org/id/03B187AD-FFB4-FFFB-CCB4-FB87FA1A4A20

treatment provided by

Felipe

scientific name

Parrotia aff. persica (DC.)
status

 

Parrotia aff. persica (DC.) View in CoL C.A.MEY., 1831

Text-fig. 4a–e View Text-fig

M a t e r i a l. Oriolo MSF 654-1, 678, 726, 727, 728, 729, 730-1, 731, 734, 743, 849, 853-1, 991, 993, Tebano MSF n.n.

D e s c r i p t i o n. Leaf, petiolate, petiole> 10 mm long, lamina obovate, elliptic to nearly orbicular, 45–87 mm long, 35–67 mm wide, apex obtuse, rarely acute, base acute to obtuse, rounded, base asymmetrical, lamina starting above point of divergence between primary vein and basal pair of secondary veins ( Text-fig. 4c–e View Text-fig ), secondary venation (pseudo)craspedodromous to brochidodromous, secondary vein spacing irregular, the first two pairs of secondary veins usually with several abmedial veins, leaf margin wavy.

Fruits, 2 valved capsules ( Text-fig. 4a View Text-fig ) and seeds (Textfig. 4b), seed 6.5 mm long.

R e m a r k s. Parrotia was widespread in the Neogene of western Eurasia and represented by a single fossil-species, Parrotia pristina (ETTINGSH.) STUR, 1867 ( Adroit et al. 2020). The fossil leaves from Oriolo are very similar to the modern P. persica . However, based on leaf imprints, it is nearly impossible to distinguish Parrotia leaves from those of some Hamamelis spp. (e.g., H. vernalis SARG. ). Because the leaves co-occur with fruits of Parrotia , we assigned both leaf and fruit remains to Parrotia . The fruits are about 10 mm long, as is the fruit from Enza described by Martinetto (2015). This specimen, assigned to Parrotia cf. persica , shares two relevant characters with the fruits from Oriolo ( Text-fig. 4a View Text-fig ): the two style bases are prominent and close to each other. In the smaller Pliocene fruits of Parrotia reidiana KIRCHH., 1957 , from Northwestern Italy (Martinetto 2015), associated with leaves of Parrotia pristina ( Martinetto 2003) , the two style bases are less prominent and usually more broadly spaced. The Pleistocene fossil leaves and fruits from Oriolo agree in morphology with the modern western Eurasian species (see also Roiron 1983, Leroy and Roiron 1996). Hence, we use the open nomenclature merely because the fossil record of Parrotia in the Pleistocene of Italy is more extensive than presently known, and not yet adequately studied. Wood of Parrotia persica has been reported from another section of the late Early Pleistocene, the Arda section ( Pini et al. 2014a), and fruits have been noticed there in the field (Martinetto, pers. obs.), but not yet sampled.

Darwin Core Archive (for parent article) View in SIBiLS Plain XML RDF