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First published online November 7, 2008; doi:10.3732/ajb.0800172
American Journal of Botany 95: 1569-1583 (2008)
© 2008 Botanical Society of America, Inc.
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Paleobotany

Fossil Araceae from a Paleocene neotropical rainforest in Colombia1

Fabiany A. Herrera2,3,5, Carlos A. Jaramillo2, David L. Dilcher3, Scott L. Wing4 and Carolina Gómez-N.2

2 Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, CTPA, Panama City, Panama 3 Florida Museum of Natural History and Geology Department, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611-7800, USA 4 Department of Paleobiology, Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, Washington D.C., USA

ABSTRACT

Both the fossil record and molecular data support a long evolutionary history for the Araceae. Although the family is diverse in tropical America today, most araceous fossils, however, have been recorded from middle and high latitudes. Here, we report fossil leaves of Araceae from the middle-late Paleocene of northern Colombia, and review fossil araceous pollen grains from the same interval. Two of the fossil leaf species are placed in the new fossil morphogenus Petrocardium Herrera, Jaramillo, Dilcher, Wing et Gomez-N gen. nov.; these fossils are very similar in leaf morphology to extant Anthurium; however, their relationship to the genus is still unresolved. A third fossil leaf type from Cerrejón is recognized as a species of the extant genus Montrichardia, the first fossil record for this genus. These fossils inhabited a coastal rainforest ~60–58 million years ago with broadly similar habitat preferences to modern Araceae.

Key Words: Anthurium • Araceae • Colombia • fossils • monocotyledons • Montrichardia • Paleocene • systematics

Received for publication 19 May 2008. Accepted for publication 22 September 2008.

FOOTNOTES

1 This research was supported by grants from Carbones del Cerrejón and a graduate research fellowship of the University of Florida to F.H., Smithsonian Paleobiology Endowment Fund and the Unrestricted Endowments SI Grants to C.J. and S.W., NSF grant DEB-0733725 to C.J., NSF Deep Time grant DEB-0090283 to D.L.D., the Banco de la República de Colombia to C.J., The Explorers Club to F.H. and C.G., and the Colombian Petroleum Institute and ARES to C.J. The authors thank F. Chavez, G. Hernandez, C. Montes, M. Carvalho, A. Rincon, the geology team at the Cerrejón mine, and J. Bloch for help during field trips; D. Nicolson for help at the National Herbarium; and S. Yankowski for assistance clearing the extant Montrichardia leaf. S. Whittaker and A. O’Dea assisted with photography of the fossils. They also thank J. Bogner, T. Croat, R. Keating, and M. Mora for helpful discussions about the systematics of the fossils; S. Manchester and two anonymous reviewers for comments that improved the manuscript; and G. Bedoya for nomenclatural suggestions. F.H. thanks B. Himschoot, M. Barreto, C. Looy, the Spence family, and friends for support.

5 Author for correspondence (e-mail: fherrera{at}flmnh.ufl.edu)






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