An exceptionally well-preserved herbaceous eudicot from the Early Cretaceous (late Aptian-early Albian) of Northwest China

Baoxia Du; Mingzhen Zhang; Bainian Sun; Aijing Li; Jing Zhang; Defei Yan; Sanping Xie; Jingyu Wu

doi:10.1093/nsr/nwab084

An exceptionally well-preserved herbaceous eudicot from the Early Cretaceous (late Aptian-early Albian) of Northwest China

Natl Sci Rev. 2021 May 4;8(12):nwab084. doi: 10.1093/nsr/nwab084. eCollection 2021 Dec.

Authors

Baoxia Du¹, Mingzhen Zhang², Bainian Sun¹, Aijing Li¹, Jing Zhang¹, Defei Yan¹, Sanping Xie¹, Jingyu Wu¹

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Mineral Resources in Western China (Gansu Province), Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China.
² Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China.

Abstract

A fossil eudicot, Gansufructus saligna gen. et sp. nov., is reported from the Early Cretaceous (late Aptian-early Albian) of the Gansu Province, Northwest China, based on numerous well-preserved axes with attached leaves and infructescences. The leaves are alternate, short petiolate and linear-lanceolate with low rank pinnate to reticulate venation. The infructescences are loose panicles bearing fruits in different stages of maturity, each containing four partly free carpels borne in a whorled arrangement. Each carpel has three to five seeds borne along its ventral margin. The nature of the leaves and axes indicates a terrestrial, herbaceous habit. In general organization, Gansufructus is closely similar to the fruit-bearing axes of Sinocarpus decussatus from the Early Cretaceous Jehol Biota, as well as other more or less contemporaneous angiosperms from the Far East, which together provide evidence of diverse eudicot angiosperms of low stature colonizing areas close to environments of deposition.

Keywords: Early Cretaceous; Jehol Biota, Gansufructus; Northwest China; eudicot; paleoecology.