Castaneoidea puryearensis Crepet and Daghlian, 1980

Na, Yuling, Blanchard, Jane & Wang, Hongshan, 2019, Fruits, seeds and flowers from the Puryear clay pit (middle Eocene Cockfield Formation), western Tennessee, USA, Palaeontologia Electronica (a 49) 23 (3), pp. 1-57 : 16

Castaneoidea puryearensis Crepet and Daghlian, 1980

Generic and specific diagnosis. “Staminate catkins up to at least 90 mm in length having helically arranged, bract subtended, dichasia of three florets each. Florets have minute floral envelopes (0.8 mm x 1.0 mm) terminating in at least five ovate lobes. Floral envelope cuticle with rectangular epidermal cells, sometimes in rows, and with round trichome bases. Trichomes short hairs attached singly or in fascicles of at least two. Florets with up to ten stamens; anthers elliptical and small (length 0.24 mm). Pollen tricolporate; 15.6 µm x 9 µm; exine ornamentation striate” (Crepet and Daghlian, 1980, p. 753).

Number of specimens examined. None (see discussion below).

Remarks. Crepet and Daghlian (1980, p. 753, figures 27–30) established a genus and species, Castaneoidea puryearensis , based on one specimen of a staminate inflorescence axis from the Puryear locality. We were unable to locate the holotype specimen (UCPC P36; Crepet and Daghlian, 1980, p. 753) during a visit to the University of Connecticut herbarium in 2018. Here, we include the description of this specimen by Crepet and Daghlian (1980) to indicate the occurrence of this species at the Puryear locality.