Occurrence of Anacardiaceous woods in the Tertiary of Western India

Abstract

The present paper deals with two fossil woods of the family Anacardiaceae showing the closest resemblance with the woods of the extant genera Gluta L. and Mangifera L. The former is described from the Banaskantha District of Gujarat and the latter from the Jaisalmer District of Rajasthan. The occurrence of these woods during the Tertiary in the above areas indicates that the climatic conditions were definitely more humid at the time of deposition of these woods than the present dry desertic conditions.

Two dicotyledonous woods from the late Neogene sediments of Jaisalmer, Rajasthan

“…This tree also occurs in the Malayan Peninsula and Java. In addition, Mangifera indica L. (Guleria, 1984) and two gymnospermous fossil woods of Auracaria and Podocarpus of the families Auracariaceae and Podocarpaceae, respectively (Guleria & Shukla, 2011) are also known from this formation. The present distribution of all these modern counterparts of the described fossils indicates the existence of warm and humid conditions which might have supported the growth of semi-evergreen to deciduous forests in the area during the depositional time contrary to the present day harsh climate with xeric vegetation.…”

“…S o far, very few plant fossils have been described from the Shumar Formation (late Neogene) of Jaisalmer Basin in western India. Mangifera L. of the Anacardiaceae (Guleria, 1984) and two gymnospermous woods (Guleria & Shukla, 2011) are known from this formation. In order to reconstruct the palaeoclimate of the area, a number of fossil woods were collected from the late Neogene sediments of Jaisalmer.…”

Petrified Neogene woods of Tripura

“…Affinities-The diagnostic characters of the fossil, viz., diffuse porous wood, large profusely tylosed vessels, simple perforation plates, thin broken to continuous apotracheal parenchyma bands, simple uniseriate xylem rays with occasional presence of fusiform rays having gum canals and non septate fibres strongly indicate its affinities with extant genus Gluta Linnaeus of Anacardiaceae (llic, 1991;Kribs, 1959;Metcalfe & Chalk, 1950;Miles, 1978;Pearson & Brown, 1932). Chowdhury (1934) instituted the genus Glutoxylon (Guleria, 1984;Prakash & Tripathi, 1969) for the fossil woods resembling Gluta. So far five species of the genus, namely Glutoxylon burmense (Holden) Chowdhury (1952), G. cuddalorense Awasthi (1966), G. cacharense (Prakash & Tripathi) Gu leria (1984), G. garbetaense (Ghosh & Roy) Guleria (1984) and G. symphonoides Lemoigne (1978) are known from various Tertiary localities of the world.…”

“…Chowdhury (1934) instituted the genus Glutoxylon (Guleria, 1984;Prakash & Tripathi, 1969) for the fossil woods resembling Gluta. So far five species of the genus, namely Glutoxylon burmense (Holden) Chowdhury (1952), G. cuddalorense Awasthi (1966), G. cacharense (Prakash & Tripathi) Gu leria (1984), G. garbetaense (Ghosh & Roy) Guleria (1984) and G. symphonoides Lemoigne (1978) are known from various Tertiary localities of the world. As our fossil is identical to G. burmense (Holden) ChowdhUly, it has been placed under the same species.…”

“…As our fossil is identical to G. burmense (Holden) ChowdhUly, it has been placed under the same species. This species was widely distributed in India and Southeast Asia during the late Tertiary (Awasthi, 1992;Awasthi & Mehrotra, 1997;Dutta Choudhury et at., 1997;Guleria, 1984Guleria, , 1992Kar et al, 2004;Mehrotra et at., 1999;Poole & Davies, 2001).…”