Miocene winged fruits of Loxopterygium (Anacardiaceae) from the Ecuadorian Andes

A new species of asymmetrically winged fruit is described from Miocene sediments of Andean Ecuador. The new fruit is readily placed in the genus Loxopterygium of the Anacardiaceae based on the size, position of the stigma, wing venation, and serration of the wing tip. The new fossil species is very...

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Published inAmerican journal of botany Vol. 91; no. 11; pp. 1767 - 1773
Main Authors Burnham, Robyn J, Carranco, Nina L
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Botanical Soc America 01.11.2004
Botanical Society of America
Botanical Society of America, Inc
Subjects
anemochory
Berries
Biological taxonomies
Botany
Dry forests
dry tropical forest
Ecuador
Flora
Fossils
Fruits
Genera
Habitats
Loxopterygium
Paleobotany
Plants
Pollen
Sediments
Tertiary
Tropical forests
winged diaspores
Ecuador
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Summary:A new species of asymmetrically winged fruit is described from Miocene sediments of Andean Ecuador. The new fruit is readily placed in the genus Loxopterygium of the Anacardiaceae based on the size, position of the stigma, wing venation, and serration of the wing tip. The new fossil species is very similar to extant species of Loxopterygium now distributed in dry habitats of coastal Ecuador and Peru, as well as dry interior forests of Bolivia and northern Argentina. We use the fossil to calibrate a molecular-based phylogeny of some members of the Anacardiaceae, showing that dry forest habitats may have been present in South America for more than 10 million years.
Bibliography:The authors thank E. A. Kowalski, D. Chaney, E. S. Jules, and T. Howard for field assistance, R. Barriga of the Escuela Politecnica Nacional for facilitating logistics, collections managers from NYBG, MO, MICH, F for loans, the Ecuadorian Ministry of Agriculture for permission to collect fossils; T. Pennington, M. Lavin, and C. Pendry for generously sharing data on phylogenetic reconstructions; V. Barreda for providing important information on pollen records, and C. Pendry and M. Lavin for helpful comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. This research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation (EAR‐9316316) and the Fulbright Senior Faculty Award Program.
rburnham@umich.edu
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ISSN:0002-9122
1537-2197
DOI:10.3732/ajb.91.11.1767