Cryptokerpia sarlaccophora gen. et sp. nov., an enigmatic plant fossil from the Late Permian Umm Irna Formation of Jordan

Blomenkemper, Patrick; Hamad, Abdullah; Bomfleur, Benjamin

doi:10.1007/s12542-019-00466-x

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…Sediments of the Umm Irna Formation were deposited in a fluviolacustrine lowland setting under strongly seasonal conditions (e.g., Bandel and Khoury, 1981;Stephenson and Powell, 2013). The formation has yielded a peculiar admixture of plant taxa, including typical late Paleozoic and Mesozoic taxa as well as typical representatives from different floral provinces of Pangea (Mustafa, 2003;Kerp et al, 2006;Abu Hamad et al, 2008Blomenkemper et al, 2018Blomenkemper et al, , 2019Blomenkemper et al, , 2020Zavialova et al, 2021). Bennettitalean fossils have been recovered from three fossil localities in particular:…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bennettitalean Leaves From the Permian of Equatorial Pangea—The Early Radiation of an Iconic Mesozoic Gymnosperm Group

et al. 2021

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Bennettitaleans are an extinct group of gymnosperms that are among the most iconic plants of Earth’s vegetation during the Mesozoic Era. The sudden appearance and rise to dominance of the Bennettitales during the Triassic remains a mystery. Leaf fossils similar to typical bennettitalean foliage occur in late Paleozoic deposits worldwide, but bennettitalean foliage can be identified with certainty only in case the fossils are sufficiently well-preserved to show epidermal features. So far, the characteristic stomatal architecture of the group has never been systematically documented in these putative Paleozoic remains. Here, we present well-preserved bennettitalean leaves from Permian deposits in two widely separated regions of equatorial Pangea. Two species of cuticle-bearing leaf compressions from the late Permian Umm Irna Formation, Jordan, are here formally described as Pterophyllum pottii Bomfleur et Kerp sp. nov. and Nilssoniopteris jogiana Blomenkemper et Abu Hamad sp. nov. Moreover, bulk maceration of samples from the Umm Irna Formation yielded six additional types of dispersed bennettitalean cuticles that are here informally described. In addition, the Cisuralian (early Permian) uppermost part of the Upper Shihhotse Formation exposed at the Palougou section in Shanxi Province, China, has yielded the oldest unambiguous bennettitalean fossils known to date; they consist of fragments of entire-margined leaves with well-preserved cuticles that we assign to Nilssoniopteris shanxiensis Bäumer, Backer et Wang sp. nov. Unlike the characteristic puzzle-patterned cuticles typical of many Jurassic and Cretaceous bennettites, the cuticles of these Permian bennettitalean remains show non-sinuous anticlinal walls, greater variety in stomatal orientation, and rare occurrence of transversely divided subsidiary cells—features that have until now almost exclusively been documented from the hitherto oldest cuticle-bearing Triassic bennettitalean material. Finally, the taxonomic richness, disjunct distribution, and broad variety in macro- and micromorphological features in these Permian bennettitalean remains lead us to suspect that the origin of the group will date back still further in time, and might in fact coincide with very early occurrences of Bennettitales-like foliage from the Pennsylvanian and Cisuralian, such as Pterophyllum cottaeanum, P. eratum, or P. grandeuryi.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bennettitalean Leaves From the Permian of Equatorial Pangea—The Early Radiation of an Iconic Mesozoic Gymnosperm Group

et al. 2021

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“…In subsequent years additional plant-bearing localities in the Umm Irna Formation were found, which together yielded a very diverse flora, including the first occurrences of two other lineages of typical Mesozoic gymnosperms, the bennettitaleans and podocarpacean conifers (Blomenkemper et al, 2018). Other groups present in the Umm Irna Formation include putative isoetaleans, sphenophytes, noeggerathialeans, marattialean ferns, taeniopterids, ginkgophytes, cycadophytes and various conifers, as well as a recently described enigmatic gymnosperm (Blomenkemper et al, 2019). In the past 20…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, in some cases isolated parts of the same plant are described under different names. Hamad et al, 2008Blomenkemper, 2020;Blomenkemper et al, 2018Blomenkemper et al, , 2019Blomenkemper et al, , 2020Blomenkemper et al, , 2021.…”

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The fossil flora of the Dead Sea region, Jordan – A late Permian Garden of Delights

Kerp

Blomenkemper

Hamad

et al. 2021

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The Umm Irna Formation, Jordan, holds one of the most peculiar late Permian plant–fossil assemblages worldwide. Over the last decades of field work, several localities close to the eastern shore of the Dead Sea have yielded a highly diverse ‘mixed flora’ of mesic to xeric environments encompassing elements that are typical either for different floral realms or for different time periods of Earth History. Taxa typical for particular floral realms include, e.g. Cathaysian gigantopterids and Lobatannularia, Euramerican conifers such as Otovicia hypnoides, or the characteristic Gondwanan seed ferns Glossopteris and Dicroidium. Moreover, most taxa are typical for the Permian, some assemblages have also yielded precocious occurrences of taxa that have so far been considered typical for the Mesozoic, such as Umkomasiaceae, Bennettitales, and podocarp conifers. In most cases, fossils from the Umm Irna Formation show well–preserved cuticles that allow sound systematic placement and contribute to the reconstruction of dispersed plant parts into whole–plant–taxa. Altogether, the Umm Irna Formation provides an exceptional window into depositional environments and vegetation types that are rarely preserved in the fossil record but that are crucial for our understanding of plant evolution.

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The why and how of sunken stomata: does the behaviour of encrypted stomata and the leaf cuticle matter?

Šantrůček

2022

Annals of Botany

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Background Stomatal pores in many species are separated from the free atmosphere by different anatomical obstacles produced by leaf epidermal cells, especially by sunken stomatal crypts, stomatal antechambers and/or hairs (trichomes). The evolutionary driving forces leading to sunken or “hidden” stomata whose antechambers are filled with hairs or waxy plugs are not fully understood. The available hypothetical explanations are based mainly on mathematical modelling of water and CO2 diffusion through superficial versus sunken stomata, and studies of comparative autecology. A better understanding of this phenomenon may result from examining the interactions between leaf cuticle and stomata and from functional comparisons of sunken versus superficially positioned stomata, especially when transpiration is low, for example at night or during severe drought. Scope I review recent ideas on why stomata are hidden and test experimentally whether hidden stomata may behave differently from those not covered by epidermal structures and so are coupled more closely to the free atmosphere. I also quantify the contribution of stomatal versus cuticular transpiration at night using four species with sunken stomata and three s with superficial stomata. Conclusions Partitioning of leaf conductance in darkness (gtw) into stomatal and cuticular contributions revealed that stomatal conductance dominated gtw across all 7 investigated species with differently pronounced antechambers. Hidden stomata contributed, on average, less to gtw (ca. 70 %) than superficial stomata (ca. 80 %) and reduced their contribution dramatically with increasing gtw. By contrast, species with superficial stomata kept their proportion in gtw invariant across a broad range of gtw. Mechanisms behind the specific behaviour of hidden stomata and multipurpose origin of sunken stomata are discussed.

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Cryptokerpia sarlaccophora gen. et sp. nov., an enigmatic plant fossil from the Late Permian Umm Irna Formation of Jordan

Cited by 4 publications

References 37 publications

Bennettitalean Leaves From the Permian of Equatorial Pangea—The Early Radiation of an Iconic Mesozoic Gymnosperm Group

Bennettitalean Leaves From the Permian of Equatorial Pangea—The Early Radiation of an Iconic Mesozoic Gymnosperm Group

The fossil flora of the Dead Sea region, Jordan – A late Permian Garden of Delights

The why and how of sunken stomata: does the behaviour of encrypted stomata and the leaf cuticle matter?

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