Fossil Fruits of Ceratophyllum from the Upper Eocene and Miocene of South China

Shenglan Xu; Hanzhang Song; Helanlin Xiang; Weiqiu Liu; Cheng Quan; Jianhua Jin

doi:10.3390/biology11111614

Fossil Fruits of Ceratophyllum from the Upper Eocene and Miocene of South China

Biology (Basel). 2022 Nov 4;11(11):1614. doi: 10.3390/biology11111614.

Authors

Shenglan Xu^{1

2}, Hanzhang Song¹, Helanlin Xiang¹, Weiqiu Liu^{1

2}, Cheng Quan³, Jianhua Jin^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol and Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Resources, School of Life Sciences/School of Ecology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology & Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology & Palaeontology, CAS, Nanjing 210008, China.
³ School of Earth Science and Resources, Chang'an University, Xi'an 710065, China.

Abstract

Ceratophyllum L. is a cosmopolitan genus of perennial aquatic herbs that occur in quiet freshwaters. Fossils of this genus have been widely reported from the Northern Hemisphere, most of them occurring in the temperate zone. Here, we describe two species of fossil fruits discovered from subtropical areas of China. The fossil fruit discovered from the upper Eocene Huangniuling Formation of the Maoming Basin is designated as C. cf. muricatum Chamisso, and fruits discovered from the Miocene Erzitang Formation of the Guiping Basin are assigned to the extant species C. demersum L. The discovery of these two fossil species indicates that Ceratophyllum had spread to South China by the late Eocene and their distribution expanded in subtropical China during the Miocene.

Keywords: Ceratophyllum; Eocene; Miocene; South China; fruit fossil; palaeophytogeography.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 42072020, 41820104002, 41872015, 42111530024), and State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy (Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, CAS) (Grant No. 223110).