Fruits of Euphorbiaceae from the Late Cretaceous Deccan Intertrappean Beds of India

The first Gondwanan Euphorbiaceae fossils reset the biogeographic history of the Macaranga‐Mallotus clade

“…were classically ascribed to the Old World (Bentham, 1878; Webster, 1994) and West Gondwana (Raven and Axelrod, 1974; Gentry, 1982), but there is little modern consensus on the biogeographic history of Euphorbiaceae s.s. or its major lineages. The discussion is limited by the family's scarce macrofossil record, which is historically dominated by problematic occurrences of isolated leaves (Nucete et al, 2012; Reback et al, 2022). However, findings of nonfoliar material have increased, including fruits and woods of Euphorbiaceae from the Deccan Intertrappean Beds, near the Cretaceous‐Paleogene boundary in central India (Lakhanpal and Dayal, 1962; Wheeler et al, 2017; Reback et al, 2022) and several Eocene fruits from the eastern United States and western Europe (Reid and Chandler, 1933; Mazer and Tiffney, 1982; Vaudois‐Miéja, 1986; Collinson et al, 2012).…”

“…macrofossil record, which is historically dominated by problematic occurrences of isolated leaves (Nucete et al, 2012;Reback et al, 2022). However, findings of nonfoliar material have increased, including fruits and woods of Euphorbiaceae from the Deccan Intertrappean Beds, near the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary in central India (Lakhanpal and Dayal, 1962;Wheeler et al, 2017;Reback et al, 2022) and several Eocene fruits from the eastern United States and western Europe (Reid and Chandler, 1933;Mazer and Tiffney, 1982;Vaudois-Miéja, 1986;Collinson et al, 2012).…”

“…The discussion is limited by the family's scarce macrofossil record, which is historically dominated by problematic occurrences of isolated leaves (Nucete et al, 2012; Reback et al, 2022). However, findings of nonfoliar material have increased, including fruits and woods of Euphorbiaceae from the Deccan Intertrappean Beds, near the Cretaceous‐Paleogene boundary in central India (Lakhanpal and Dayal, 1962; Wheeler et al, 2017; Reback et al, 2022) and several Eocene fruits from the eastern United States and western Europe (Reid and Chandler, 1933; Mazer and Tiffney, 1982; Vaudois‐Miéja, 1986; Collinson et al, 2012). Fossils with affinities below the family level include middle Eocene fruits and inflorescences of Hippomaneae (subfamily Euphorbioideae) from Tennessee (Crepet and Daghlian, 1982; Dilcher and Manchester, 1988); middle Eocene wood assigned to Hura (Euphorbioideae) from Peru (Woodcock et al, 2017); late Eocene fruits from Oregon similar to Aleurites (subfamily Crotonoideae; Manchester and McIntosh, 2007); early Oligocene fruits similar to Crotonoideae from Peru (Hamersma et al, 2022) and Australia (Rozefelds et al, 2017b); a potentially Miocene Aleurites seed from Australia (Rozefelds et al, 2017a); and early Miocene fruits, inflorescences with in situ pollen, and leaves related to Macaranga and Mallotus (subfamily Acalyphoideae) from New Zealand (Lee et al, 2010; Conran et al, 2016).…”