Magnolia allasoniae MARTINETTO, 2022

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 : 199

Magnolia allasoniae MARTINETTO hypothetic “whole-plant” Pl. 5, Figs 4–6

M a t e r i a l. About 20 seeds, showing the typical morphology of the fossil-species Magnolia allasoniae (see above), have been retrieved at Ciabòt Cagna. Rare pollen grains which exhibit some morphological features similar to Magnoliaceae have been found only in the Pollenzo and Ciabòt Cagna sections.

R e m a r k s. The rare pollen grains have clear traits (e.g., size, opening) of Magnoliaceae , however it is not possible to examine the exine in detail, therefore they were defined as cf. Magnoliaceae . The pollen grains of cf. Magnoliaceae were found in the same sample from the Ciabòt Cagna section subjected to carpological analyses in which seeds of M. allasoniae were also found.This could support the taxonomic attribution of the pollen to the Magnoliaceae , which was not so clearly proven by morphological characters alone. The seeds of M. allasoniae are one of the most common types at Ciabòt Cagna and in the post-evaporitic sediments of the PB these are the only macrofossils of Magnoliaceae . Since the extant seeds of members of this family, including those of Liriodendron L., are strongly lignified and resistant to decay, the lack of records of species other than M. allasoniae points to the absence or scarcity of magnoliaceous plants in the palaeoenvironment, and not to a taphonomical bias. Therefore, due to the lack of evidence for other species, it is very probable that the above-cited pollen of cf. Magnoliaceae gen. et sp. indet. could be a production of the conceptual Magnolia allasoniae “whole-plant”. Concerning the leaves, none of the remains at Ciabòt Cagna, associated with the seeds, can be consistently referred to Magnolia . An affinity to extant leaves of this genus could be recognized in the leaf morphotype here treated as cf. Oleinites liguricus (see below).