Acer ” sotzkianum UNGER

Kvaček, Zlatko & Teodoridis, Vasilis, 2011, The Late Eocene Flora Of Kučlín Near Bílina In North Bohemia Revisited, Acta Musei Nationalis Pragae Series B 67 (3 - 4), pp. 83-144 : 101

“ Acer ” sotzkianum UNGER

Pl. 9, figs 8, 10

1850b Acer sotzkianum UNGER , p. 175, pl. 50, fig. 3.

1990 Acer bohemicum sensu Mai ; Bůžek et al., pp. 171-172, fig. 3.17.

2002a “ Acer ” sotzkianum UNGER ; Kvaček, p. 224, pl. 2, fig. 1.

Simple samaras of the form of halves of maple samaras. Fruit body narrow oval straight on the dorsal side, slightly rounded ventrally, blunt or shortly broadly stipulate apically, attached to broad wing arising one third of the fruit body on the ventral side and continuing from the dorsal thickened margin of the fruit. Wing very flat and thin almost without any venation visible. On the fruit apex no traces of attachment to a second fruit.

D i s c u s s i o n: Affinities of these fruits similar to halves of maple double samara are controversial. These samaras occur rarely at the Late Eocene type locality of Socka ( Unger 1850b) and they occur quite occasionally at Kučlín. Unique specimens are known from the Mrtvý vrch Hill and elsewhere in the České středohoří Mountains, e.g., in the Oligocene of Holý Kluk (Radoň, Kvaček and Walther 201). To our mind there are no other occurrences besides those mentioned above and the type locality Socka of Oligocene (? Eocene) age in Slovenia ( Mai 1999). The narrowed base of the seed part occasionally with short remains of the stalk suggests that the fruits represent rather single samaras, unlike the typical double samaras of maple. Mai (1999) believes that the fruits of Acer subgen. Negundo are most similar, but the Negundo- like foliage nowhere cooccurs with the mentioned fruits. The much larger fruits of very similar form belonging to the Malvaceae are common in the late Miocene and Pliocene of Europe and assigned to Malphigiaceae by Kräusel (1852) as Banisteriaecarpum . We hesitate to use this fossil genus for the fruits from Socka and Kučlín before a connection to the corresponding foliage has been recognized.

M a t e r i a l: BP 55.1132,1, 55.2393.1, 55.2395.1,

NM G 7893a, b.