First reliable Miocene fossil winged fruits record of Engelhardia in Asia through anatomical investigation

Hanzhang Song; Luliang Huang; Helanlin Xiang; Cheng Quan; Jianhua Jin

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.106867

First reliable Miocene fossil winged fruits record of Engelhardia in Asia through anatomical investigation

iScience. 2023 May 13;26(6):106867. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.106867. eCollection 2023 Jun 16.

Authors

Hanzhang Song¹, Luliang Huang^{2

3}, Helanlin Xiang¹, Cheng Quan⁴, Jianhua Jin^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol and Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Resources, School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China.
² School of Ecology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China.
⁴ School of Earth Science & Resources, Chang'an University, Xi'an 710061, China.

Abstract

Fossil genera with similar features to the winged fruits of the living Engelhardia Lesch. ex Blume (e.g., Palaeocarya G. Saporta) have been widely reported in Cenozoic fossil floras of the Northern Hemisphere. However, fossil winged fruits of Engelhardia with detailed anatomical structures have only been found in the upper Eocene of North America. This study reports the first Engelhardia fossil winged fruits with detailed anatomical structures in East Asia from the Miocene Erzitang Formation of Guangxi, South China. The anatomical and morphological features of the new fossils, including the unique structure of secondary septa, clearly distinguish them from other fossil genera and show unambiguously their attribution to the genus Engelhardia. This discovery suggests that Engelhardia had reached its modern distribution during the Miocene and the climate of the Guiping Basin in Guangxi during the Miocene was similar to that of present-day tropical and subtropical regions in Asia.

Keywords: Botany; Evolutionary biology; Paleobiology.