Pollen Organs and Seeds withDecussosporitesBrenner from Lower Cretaceous Potomac Group Sediments of Eastern USA
作者:
K.Raunsgaard Pedersen,
E.M. Friis,
P.R. Crane,
期刊:
Grana
(Taylor Available online 1993)
卷期:
Volume 32,
issue 4-5
页码: 273-289
ISSN:0017-3134
年代: 1993
DOI:10.1080/00173139309429991
出版商: Taylor & Francis Group
数据来源: Taylor
摘要:
Microsporangiate structures,Brenneria potomacensisgen. et sp. nov., containing pollen grains similar to dispersedDecussosporitesare described from the Lower Cretaceous (Barremian or Early Aptian?) Potomac Group localities at Drewry's Bluff and Dutch Gap on the James River southeast of Richmond, Virginia. These fossils provide the first megafossil evidence of plants producingDecussosporites-type pollen and contribute important new information on the structure and possible systematic affinities of this unique Mesozoic gymnosperm. The microsporangiate structure is composed of an axis with helically arranged synangiate microsporangiate units, each unit consisting of two laterally fused sporangia borne on a short stalk. The pollen grains are very small, bisaccate, distinctly striate (taeniate) and TEM shows that they have partly infilled sacci (quasisaccate). These grains represent the youngest occurrence of saccate, striate pollen, which has not been recorded previously from sediments younger than the earliest Jurassic. Fossil seeds (Brennerispermum potomacensisgen. et sp. nov.) from the same localities asBrenneriacontainDecussosporitespollen in the micropyle, and are believed to have been produced by the same plant species. The seeds are small and unitegmic with a distinct megaspore membrane. The occurrence of seeds adhering together in groups indicates that they were borne in aggregations. The microsporangiate structures of Brenneria show some similarity to those of the ginkgophytes (Ginkgoales and Czekanowskiales), but there are substantial differences in the structure of seeds and pollen. TheDecussosporitespollen grains together with morphology of the reproductive organs support a closer relationship of theBrenneria-plant to previously described “Mesozoic pteridosperms”.
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