Ternstroemites, Berry, 1916

Halamski, Adam T., Kvaček, Jiří, Svobodová, Marcela, Durska, Ewa & Heřmanová, Zuzana, 2020, Late Cretaceous mega-, meso-, and microfloras from Lower Silesia, Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 65 (4), pp. 811-878 : 841-843

Ternstroemites ? sp.

Fig. 17C.

Material.—Bolesławiec, Assemblage 8, lower–middle Santonian: MB.Pb.2018/0045.

Description.—The single available specimen consists of two laminae (Fig. 17C 1), one incomplete (preserved length ca. 45 mm, preserved width ca. 20 mm) and one fragmentary, interpreted herein as leaflets of a compound leaf. Blade shape possibly elliptic, neither base nor apex preserved. Margin serrate; teeth ca. 2 per cm, acute, anteri- orly directed, proximal side concave to straight, distal side concave.

Venation pattern (Fig. 17C 2) pinnate brochidodromous (rarely semicraspedodromous?). Midvein stout. Secondaries rather densely and somewhat irregularly spaced, excurrent, departing at 70–90°; intersecondaries ca. one per intercostal area, departure similar to that of secondaries, disappearing about halfway to margin; tertiaries not preserved.

Remarks.—This leaf fragment is included into Ternst roemites Berry, 1916a, on account of a serrate margin and a brochidodromous venation pattern with numerous intersecondaries. Four Cretaceous representatives of this genus, namely T. harwoodensis ( Dawson, 1883) Bell, 1957 , from the Campanian of Vancouver Island ( Bell 1957) and the Coniacian of Kamchatka ( Herman and Lebedev 1991), T. ripleyensis Berry, 1925 , T. cretaceus Berry, 1925 , and T. tennesseensis Berry, 1925 , the latter three from the Ripley Formation of eastern United States ( Berry 1925) are more finely serrate. Ternstroemites longifolius ( Friedrich, 1883) Rüffle and Krutzsch, 2005 , from the Maastrichtian of Eisleben (Saxony-Anhalt, Germany) has similar serration of the margin, but secondaries are much denser. It should, however, be kept in mind that such a fragment might have belonged to a leaf of very different architecture, like for example that of Araliopsoides kiensis ( Baikovskaya, 1957) Golovneva in Golovneva and Nosova, 2012, from the Cenomanian of Siberia illustrated by Golovneva and Nosova (2012: fig. 8.7).

Ficonium silesiacum ( Velenovský, 1885) Halamski and Kvaček, 2015 , known from a single specimen from the Coniacian of Idzików, has a venation pattern with similarly numerous intersecondaries, but secondaries are camptodromous rather than brochidodromous and the margin is entire ( Halamski and Kvaček 2015: text-fig. 10).

Form group unknown

Genus Salicites ( Hisinger, 1837) Halamski and Kvaček, 2015

Type: Salicites? wahlbergii ( Nilsson, 1832) Hisinger, 1837 ≡ Phyllites ( Salix ?) wahlbergii Nilsson, 1832 ; Campanian, Upper Cretaceous; Kö- pinge, Scania, Sweden.

Remarks.—The emended diagnosis of Salicites was given by Halamski and Kvaček (2015: 122); the type species was revised by Halamski et al. (2016: 222).