中国科学院南京地质古生物研究所机构知识库

The Wuda Tuff Flora from the Taiyuan Formation of Inner Mongolia is a palaeobotanical lagerstatte that is key to our current understanding of the composition and ecology of the earliest Permian Cathaysian floras. We investigate an anatomically preserved axis that represents an additional plant family recorded in this flora and considers its palaeobiogeographical implications. The specimen possesses an omega-shaped vascular strand and has features that conform to the botryopterid fernBotryopteris. Comparisons indicate greatest similarity withBotryopteris scottiifrom the Pennsylvanian of England but due to limited information we assign it toBotryopteriscf.scottii. The new finding represents the earliest stratigraphic occurrence of botryopterids in the Cathaysian floras. AlongsideBotryopteris tridentataandBotryopteriscf.forensisin slightly younger Cisuralian strata from China, it demonstrates migration of closely related species from the Pennsylvanian wetlands of Euramerica into the Permian wetlands of Cathaysia. Together with unexpectedly early stratigraphic occurrences of the 'Methuselah taxa'Yuania, GigantonocleaandAutuniain the roof shale flora of the coal seam overlying the Wuda Tuff Flora,B. cf.scottiiadds to a growing body of evidence that records significant floral interchange and migration from different ecological settings in the Cathaysian and Euramerican floras by the earliest Permian.