Aeschynomene tertiara, a Fossil Wood from the Deccan Intertrappean Beds of Mahurzari, near Nagpur

The first record of fossil Vitaceae wood from the Southern Hemisphere, a new combination for Vitaceoxylon ramunculiformis, and reappraisal of the fossil record of the grape family (Vitaceae) from the Cenozoic of Australia

“…As Manchester et al () pointed out, recent discoveries of Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) aged Vitaceae seeds in India, before collision of that plate with Eurasia, provide the earliest evidence of the family and suggests a gondwanic history and a previously unsuspected Southern Hemisphere origin for the Vitales (Manchester et al, ). The recognition of wood referable to the Leeaceae from the late Cretaceous − early Paleocene Deccan Intertrappean Beds of Central India provides further evidence of the Vitales from India (Prakash & Dayal, (1964); Wheeler et al, ).…”

Oldest fruits of the grape family (Vitaceae) from the Late Cretaceous Deccan Cherts of India

“…Prakash and Dayal considered the combination of scalariform intervascular pitting and conspicuously broad rays to be important to their identification, but listed 13 additional dicotyledonous families known to possess those features. They stated that more detailed anatomical comparison between the fossil and each of those families indicated closest similarity to Leea of the Vitales, but they did not specify any diagnostic features that led to this conclusion (Prakash and Dayal, 1964). As yet, no fruits or seeds with the distinctive morphology of Leea have been recovered from this or other sites of the Deccan chert, although, as mentioned above, the seeds of this genus are clearly recognizable from the Late Eocene of Panama and Early Oligocene of Peru.…”

A Fossil Dicot Wood Aeschynomenoxylon Mohgaonsesp.Nov From The Deccan Intertrappean Beds Of Mohgaonkalan, M.P., India.

“…Of the family Leguminosae(Papillionaceae) such as small to medium sized vessels, parenchyma vasicentric to aliform,fine homogenous rays and simple pits on their radial wall [9,5,10].…”

“…Aeschynomenetertiara [5] shows vessels diffuse, solitary and in multiples of two, usually small occasionally of medium size, perforation plates exclusively simple, horizontal to slightly inclined, parenchyma scanty, ray homogenous composed of procumbent cells,mostly uniseriate rarely partially biseriate, pits simple, more numerous on the radial walls than on the tangential wall.But it greatly differs from the present petrified wood in having parenchyma 1-4 seriate, occasionally slightly wavy, continous or broken tangential bands which are more or less parallel, both fusiform and strand parenchyma are found ,and fibers unstoried.…”

“…Many dicotyledonous woods have so far been described from this wellknown locality by number of workers [1,2,3] showing affinities to the families like Myrtaceae, Combretaceae, Euphorbiaceae. A preliminary study of the present material resulted in the finding of fossil woods showing similarities with the already known species of Aeschynomene, such as Aeschynomenoxylon, Aeschynomenetertiarum (Prakash) [4], Aeschynomenetertiara [5] and Aeschynomenoxylonmalwaensis [6] which is described below.…”