MANCHESTER, STEVEN1* and ZHIDUAN CHEN2. 1Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-7800 USA; 2Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiangshan, Beijing 100093
China. - Middle Eocene leaves and fruits of Huadian, Jilin Province, Northeastern China.
In northeastern China, a relatively small number of localities have
provided most of our data on Paleogene megafossil plants. In most
cases, the stratigraphic ages have been estimated on the basis of
floristic correlations; the precision of these age estimates is
uncertain because there is lack of corroborative evidence from other
methods. It is not surprising, therefore, that different authorities
have proposed different ages for the these paleobotanical assemblages.
A newly collected megafossil flora from an underground coal mine at
Gonglantou, Huadian, Jilin Province, China (N42¡59Õ54Ó, E 126¡51Õ58Ó),
occurs in association with a mammalian fauna indicating middle Eocene
age. We report leaves of Ginkgo , Metasequoia ,
Platanus , Trochodendroides , Quercus , and
several additional dicotyledonous leaf types as yet unidentified,
along with fruits of Rhus , Koelreuteria , Craigia
, and two genera of Menispermeae. The taxonomic composition of the
flora is consistent with the interpretation of temperate to
subtropical climate, and is similar to that of middle Eocene floras at
comparable latitude in western North America.
Key words: China, Eocene, fossil, fruits, leaves