Paleoaltingia gen. nov., a new genus of Altingiaceae from the Late Cretaceous of New Jersey

Abstract

As one of the most highly diverse floras of Late Cretaceous worldwide, the New Jersey flora (~90 Ma) is characterized by its threedimensional charcoalifed fossils, which expand our understanding of the rapid radiation and paleobiogeography in early angiosperms (Crepet et al., 2018). The emergence of Altingiaceae from the same deposits provides direct evidence of early floral structures, and implications in biogeographic inferences. Traditionally, the family Hamamelidaceae included three extant genera, Liquidambar L.,

Evidence for the evolutionary history and diversity of fossil sweetgums: leaves and associated capitate reproductive structures of Liquidambar from the Eocene of Hainan Island, South China

“…2001; Lai et al . 2021) and the lower Coniacian of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada (Scharfstein et al . 2020).…”

“…2001; Lai et al . 2021) and lower Coniacian of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada (Scharfstein et al . 2020), while anatomically preserved reliable infructescences of Liquidambar are currently known only from the Miocene of Washington, USA and Fujian Province, southeastern China (Pigg et al .…”

Structurally Preserved Liquidambar Infructescences, Associated Pollen, and Leaves from the Late Oligocene of the Nanning Basin, South China

“…The majority of fossil Liquidambar infructescences are preserved as compressions. Although the reproductive structures of extant representatives of families Altingiaceae and Platanaceae differ significantly, fossil altingioid and platanoid compressed fruiting heads are often very similar in gross morphology [44,55], especially those with persistent styles [10,20,50,56]. In this case, the associated leaves and pollen provide indirect evidence that the fossil inflorescences/infructescences may belong to the same taxon.…”

“…Reproductive structures comparable to those of Liquidambar , but differing in some microstructural features of the capitate inflorescences/infructescences and pollen morphology, are known from the upper Turonian ( Microaltingia Zhou, Crepet et Nixon; Paleoaltingia Y.J. Lai, Gandolfo, and Crepet et Nixon) [ 43 , 44 ] and lower Coniacian ( Protoaltingia Scharfstein and Stockey et Rothwell) [ 45 ] of North America. Capitate infructescences of the Eocene genus Steinhauera C. Presl related to Altingiaceae are known from some localities of Europe [ 46 , 47 , 48 ].…”