Fossil woods from the Tertiary of Eastern India, 11

Abstract

The present paper consists of the revision of five species of fossil dipterocarpaceous woods, viz. Dipterocarpoxylon indicum, Shoreoxylon holdeni, S. mortandranse, S. megaporosum and Anisopteroxylon cuddalorense, described by Ramanujam (1956, 1960) from the Tertiary of South India, near Pondicherry, South Arcot district, Tamil Nadu (Madras). On re-investigation these were found very similar to the wood structure of the genus Dryobalanops Gaertn. f. and hence transferred to the genus DryobalanoxyIon Den Berger. The first species, i.e. Dipterocarpoxylon indicum, is renamed as Dryobalanoxylon indicum (Ramanujam) comb. nov., and the remaining four species, found identical with each other, are placed under Dryobalanoxylon holdeni (Ramanujam) comb. nov.

Fossil flora from the Himalayan foot-hills of Darjeeling District, West Bengal and its palaeoecological and phytogeographical significance

“…The genus Calopbyllum Linn. is well known for its fossil woods in the Neogene of India, such as from the Cuddalore Series, south India; Tipam Series near Hailakandi, Assam; Dupitila Series in Deomali, Arunachal Pradesh; Tertiary of West Bengal; Neogene of Varkala beds, south India (Lakhanpal & Awasthi, 1965;Prakash, 1966a;Prakash & Awasthi, 1971; respectively. Besides India, the fossil woods of this genus are known from the Neogene of Java (Kramer, 1974) and Ethiopia (Lemoigne, 1978).…”

“…The fossil woods of the genus 5horea are also well known both from the Neogene sediments of India and South-east Asia. In India, they have been reponed from Uttar Pradesh (Prasad & Prakash, 1987), Assam and West Bengal (Prakash & Awasthi, 1971;Bande & Prakash, 1980) and Tamil Nadu (Ramanujam & Rao. 1967.…”

Phytogeographic evolution of Guttiferae and its bearing on the past climate

“…From the same beds near Jaipur, a fossil wood of Calophyllum, Calophylloxylon eoinophyllum is also known in Assam (Prakash & Awasthi, 1971). This fossil closely resembles the modern wood of Calophyllum inophyllum.…”

“…This has also been amply supported by the extin,ction of Dipterocarpus, Dryobalanops and Anisoptera from near Pondicherry. These were present there during the Cuddalore times (Awasthi, 1971(Awasthi, , 1972Navale, 1963). M esua ferrea is common in Tropical Asia and in the Indian region (Map 4) it is presently found in the evergreen forests of Western Duars, Assam, Chittagong, Upper Burma, Tenasserim, Andaman Islands, Western ghats from North Kanara southwards to Tinnevelly and in Ceylon, whereas Calaphyllum wightianum and C. tomentasum grow in evergreen forests of Western ghats from North Kanara to Travancore (Gamble, 1902;Pearson & Brown, 1932;Maheshwari, 1963).…”

Fossil woods of Ougenia and Madhuca from the Tertiary of Assam

“…So far, only seven species of f fossil woods belonging to the family Sapotaceae .are kn0':Vn. These are Sapotoaylon taematt£m Fe1Jx (1882) from Bavaria in South-East Germany, S.pacltovaePrakash, Brezinova & Awasthi (1974) (Grambast-Fessard, 1968), M. bohemicum Prakash, Brezinova & Awasthi (1974) from the Tertiary of South Bohemia and M. diluviale Hofmann (1948) from Quaternary deposits of South America.…”