A Fossil Grass (Gramineae: Chloridoideae) from the Miocene with Kranz Anatomy
Abstract
A fossil leaf fragment collected from the Ogallala Formation of northwestern Kansas exhibits features found in taxa of the modern grass subfamily Chloridoideae. These include bullet-shaped, bicellular microhairs, dumbbell-shaped silica bodies, cross-shaped suberin cells, papillae, stomata with low dome- to triangular-shaped subsidiary cells, and Kranz leaf anatomy. The leaf fragment extends the fossil record of plants that show both anatomical and external micromorphological features indicating C4 photosynthesis back to the Miocene. On the basis of associated mammals, the leaf fragment is assigned a Hemphillian age (7 to 5 million years ago).
- Publication:
-
Science
- Pub Date:
- August 1986
- DOI:
- 10.1126/science.233.4766.876
- Bibcode:
- 1986Sci...233..876T