Craigia W.W.SMITH et W.E.EVANS, 1921

Niccolini, Gabriele, Martinetto, Edoardo, Lanini, Benedetta, Menichetti, Elena, Fusco, Fabio, Hakobyan, Elen & Bertini, Adele, 2022, Late Messinian Flora From The Post-Evaporitic Deposits Of The Piedmont Basin (Northwest Italy), Fossil Imprint 78 (1), pp. 189-216 : 201

cf. Craigia W.W.SMITH et W.E.EVANS, 1921

Pl. 2, Figs 10–12

M a t e r i a l. Rare pollen grains have been found in Govone and Ciabòt Cagna sections. No plant macroremains have been reported from the post-evaporitic sediments of the PB.

R e m a r k s. The palynological record of Craigia turns out to be problematic as the pollen grains are difficult to identify, due to a consistent similarity to Tilia as evidenced by the morphological description of Craigia pollen by Kvaček et al. (2002) and Zetter et al. (2002).

Under the optical microscope, the pollen is a monad, oblate, brevicolporate, the exine is reticulate with apertures characterised by a thickening of the circular horseshoeshaped nexin ( Kvaček et al. 2002).

In contrast, Tilia is thicker and much wider and less convex ( Perveen et al. 2004). Furthermore, Tilia pollen is larger and with more prominent sculpture ( Grímsson et al. 2020). Despite the difficulty to recognize Craigia pollen under the optical microscope, rare pollen grains associated to this genus (cf. Craigia ) are reported here for the first time in the post-evaporitic phase of the PB.

Fruits of Craigia are known from the evaporitic interval ( Martinetto et al. 2000, Bertini and Martinetto 2008) and leaves usually associated with this same fruit type (“ Dombeyopsis lobata UNGER ”; Kvaček et al. 2005) have been reported from the Pliocene of the PB ( Martinetto 2003).