Polyptera manningii, Manchester & Dilcher, 1982

Manchester, Steven R., 2014, Revisions To Roland Brown’S North American Paleocene Flora, Acta Musei Nationalis Pragae Series B 70 (3 - 4), pp. 153-210 : 172

Polyptera manningii MANCHESTER et DILCHER

Fruits and foliage that Brown called Pterocarya glabra R. W. BROWN are now treated as an extinct genus. The fruits were described as Polyptera manningii MANCHESTER et DILCHER. The foliage, found in consistent association at more than a dozen sites in Wyoming and Montana (plus a recently discovered site in central Colorado —Baptist Road locality, DMNH loc. 2177) is treated as Juglandiphylloides glabra (R. W. BROWN) MANCHESTER et DILCHER. The leaves have five to seven leaflets. One of the distinctive features of this species is the long petiolules that can be 2.5–10 mm long, in contrast to the subsessile leaflets of other juglandaceous leaf types known from these Paleocene deposits. Associated catkins yield triporate isopolar pollen of Maceopolipollenites annellus (NICHOLS et OTT) MANCHESTER et DILCHER (referred to Momipites annellus by Nichols and Ott 1978). Polyptera is the oldest of the juglandaceous fruit genera known from the Rocky Mountain region, being known from Puercan and Torrejonian sites, and not found in co-occurrence with Cyclocarya or Juglandicarya . J. glabra leaflets, which are serrate to rarely entire-margined, are readily distinguished from other Paleocene Juglandaceae by the long petiolules.