Daphnogene cinnamomifolia (BRONGNIART) UNGER

Kvaček, Zlatko, Teodoridis, Vasilis & Zajícová, Jana, 2015, Revision Of The Early Oligocene Flora Of Hrazený Hill (Formerly Pirskenberg) In Knížecí Near Šluknov, North Bohemia, Acta Musei Nationalis Pragae Series B 71 (1 - 2), pp. 55-102 : 61

Daphnogene cinnamomifolia (BRONGNIART) UNGER

Pl. 5, Fig. 1–4, Pl. 6, Fig. 4

1822 Phyllites cinnamomifolia BRONGNIART in CUVIER, p. 359, pl. 11, fig. 12.

1850 Daphnogene cinnamomifolia (BRONGNIART) UNGER , p. 424.

1961 Cinnamomum scheuchzeri (HEER) FRENTZEN ; Knobloch, p. 276, pl. 1, fig. 7, pl. 10, fig. 9.

Knobloch (1961) identified cinnamomoid leaves from Knížecí according to the slender form as Cinnamomum scheuchzeri from the middle Miocene of Öhningen and described them as follows: (translated from Czech) “Leaves lanceolate, entire. Midrib straight, conspicuous. Basal veins running near the margin. In the leaves’ lower two thirds they end and connect with the secondary veins, which depart from the midrib. Basal veins are connected with the leaf margin by tertiaries either perpendicular or oblique or broken. In the leaves’ upper third secondary veins arise from the midrib and interconnect by loops. Higher-order venation is formed by a reticulum of polygonal fields.” The leaves vary in size from very small, 21 mm long and 13 mm wide to slightly broader, ca. 40 mm wide, fragmentary in length. The mesophyll tissue contains numerous lens-shaped secretory cells. The recently obtained structure of the adaxial cuticle shows polygonal cells with straight anticlinale walls or occasionally only very shallowly wavy, the abaxial cuticle is densely hairy and the trichomes are only 5 µm thick, very narrow, and ca 100 µm long.

D i s c u s s i o n. The record of Daphnogene from Knížecí is similar in epidermal patterns to those known from other Oligocene localities in Europe (e.g. Kvaček and Knobloch 1967, Bůžek et al. 1976). The abaxial epidermal structure, namely long narrow trichomes, corresponds to that described from the Oligocene material of Markvartice (Kvaček in Bůžek et al. 1976). As any connection between Palaeogene foliage with fruits of Cinnamomum has not yet been proven, we continue including the above fossil species in the fossil genus Daphnogene .

M a t e r i a l s t u d i e d: Leaf impressions-compressions, NM-G2811, NM-G2851a, b, NM-G8600, NM-G11497, NM-G11498, NM-G11499, NM-G11500, NM-G11513, EK 247, 248, partly with cuticles.