Pinus aff. peuce GRISEB., 1846

Denk, Thomas, Sami, Marco, Teodoridis, Vasilis & Martinetto, Edoardo, 2022, The Late Early Pleistocene Flora Of Oriolo, Faenza (Italy): Assembly Of The Modern Forest Biome, Fossil Imprint 78 (1), pp. 217-262 : 221

Pinus aff. peuce GRISEB., 1846

Text-fig. 2a, b

2009 Pinus peuce GRISEB. ; Martinetto, p. 27, fig. 4(5).

M a t e r i a l. Oriolo MSF 643, Tebano MSF n.n., a single specimen from Tebano.

D e s c r i p t i o n. Cone fragmented, narrow oblong, 79–110 mm long, 21–25 mm wide, cone scales smooth or appearing to have a slightly reflexed apical part.

R e m a r k s. The size, shape, number and thickness of the scales indicate that these cones belong to Pinus subgenus Strobus (five needle pines; Mai 1986). The only representative of this group known in the late Cenozoic of Italy is closely similar to the extant species Pinus peuce GRISEB. from the Balkans. This kind of pinecone was already frequent in the Pliocene, and is also known from Pleistocene strata of Pianico ( Sordelli 1896, Martinetto 2009) and Steggio ( Ghiotto 2010). The bad preservation suggests that this taxon grew at some distance from the depositional area.

Figures

Text-fig. 2. a, b: Pinus aff. peuce cones. a: Oriolo, MSF 643. b: Tebano, MSF 1021. c: Abies aff. alba cone scale, Oriolo MSF 988. d, e: Tsuga chiarugii cones. d: Oriolo MSF 638. e: Oriolo MSF 979. f, h: Bambusa lugdunensis leaves and leafy axis. f: Oriolo MSF 937. h: Oriolo MSF 651. g: Modern leaf of Yushania for comparison (NMNS Cleared Leaf Database specimen U1347). i: Phragmites sp. Oriolo MSF n.n. Scale bars 50 mm (a, b, h, i), 10 mm (c–g).