Tsuga schneideriana KUNZMANN et MAI

Dedicated in memory of the late FrantiŠek Holý (1935 - 1984), an eminent Czech palaeobotanist, Holý, František, Kvaček, Zlatko & Teodoridis, Vasilis, 2012, A Review Of The Early Miocene Mastixioid Flora Of The Kristina Mine At Hrádek Nad Nisou In North Bohemia (The Czech Republic), Acta Musei Nationalis Pragae Series B 68 (3 - 4), pp. 53-118 : 57

Tsuga schneideriana KUNZMANN et MAI

Pl. 1, fig. 4, pl. 10, figs 3-4

1976

2005 Tsuga sp. ; Knobloch and Kvaček, p. 13, pl. 2, figs 6-9, pl. 12, fig. 21, pl. 15, fig. 12, pl. 20, fig. 9, text-fig. 3 (Wackersdorf).

Tsuga schneideriana KUNZMANN et MAI , p. 106, pl. 12, figs 1-9, pl. 13, figs 1-3 (Wiesa).

Leaves linear, needle-like, flat, 1 mm wide, one complete 17 mm long, blunt at apex, shortly petiolate at base, with obliquely attached petiole 0.7 mm long, entire on margin, adaxially slightly grooved along the strong and straight midrib, hypostomatic, epidermis thinly cutinized, non-modified cells straight-walled, very long, with smooth anticlinal walls, two abaxial stomatal bands containing 3–5 rows of stomata with sparsely distributed incompletely amphicyclic stomata arranged longitudinally. Stomatal apparatus composed of two lateral short halfmoon-shaped and two polar elongate subsidiary cells bordering the stomatal pit 25 × 50 µm in size.

D i s c u s s i o n: Fossil needles similar to those described above from the Kristina Mine (Kvaček 1966, p. 19, pl. 3, figs 6a, b, pl. 4, fig. 3, text-figs 8-9) were assigned to Tsuga from Wackersdorf by Kvaček and Knobloch (1976) and later from Wiesa by Kunzmann and Mai (2005), who more thoroughly studied modern living counterparts. Kvaček (1966) recognized the erroneous identification of such fossils assigned to Keteleeria ( Mai 1964) and suggested as the most similar living species T. jeffreyi HENRY and T. mertensiana (BONG.) SARG. from North America while Kunzmann and Mai (2005), based on more complex comparative material argued for Tsuga dumosa (D. DON) EICHLER from southern China, NE India and Burma as the nearest living relative.

M a t e r i a l: Isolated needles on slides, G 8868a-b, 8869a-c, 8870, 8871 (KR 104A, B, 346).

Cathaya CHUN et KUANG