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Fossil samaras of Acer L. (Sapindaceae) from the Upper Pliocene of western Yunnan, southwestern China

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Abstract

The genus Acer L. (Sapindaceae Juss.) nowadays thrives in the temperate-subtropical areas of the Northern Hemisphere, especially in Yunnan and its adjacent areas in southwestern China. However, the fossil records of Acer from China, especially fruit fossils, are rather limited compared to its modern prosperity and high species diversity there. In this study, we described three taxa of Acer, viz. A. cf. caesium Wall. ex Brandi, A. cf. laurinum Hassk. ex Miq. and Acer sp., based on samara fossils from the Upper Pliocene of Tengchong, Yunnan, southwestern China. The samaras of Acer cf. caesium are characterised by large size, suborbicular to elliptical nutlet shape, and acute divergent angle; those of Acer cf. laurinum are characterised by large size, acute divergent angle, long elliptical nutlet shape and 5-7 veined nutlet surface; and those of Acer sp. are possibly underdeveloped and distinguished from all extant and fossil species of Acer by small size, distinct sulcus, and specific sub-triangular to semicircular nutlet shape. The occurrence of these fossils from Tengchong indicates that Acer was prosperous with high species diversity in western Yunnan during the Late Pliocene. The migration and differentiation of the genus Acer in southwestern China might have been accelerated by the rapid uplift of the Hengduan Mountains (HDM) and the post-Pliocene global cooling trend.

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Data availability

The studied fossil specimens are deposited in the fossil repository of the Institute of Palaeontology and Stratigraphy, Lanzhou University in Lanzhou City, Gansu Province, China.

The photographs of extant Acer specimens that support the morphological comparisons in this study are openly available in the Chinese Virtual Herbarium (CVH) at https://www.cvh.ac.cn, New York Botanical Garden Steere Herbarium (NYBG) at https://www.nybg.org, JSTOR Global Plants at https://plants.jstor.org, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh Herbarium (RBGE) at https://www.rbge.org.uk, French National Museum of Natural History (MNHM) at https://science.mnhn.fr, and Royal Botanic Gardens Kew Herbarium at https://www.kew.org.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the editors and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions and accurate amendments. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant numbers 31870200, 32170222 and 42272002], the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research Program [Grant 2019QZKK0704], and the Natural Science Foundation of Gansu Province, China [grant number 22JR5RA438].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Mineral Resources in Western China (Gansu Province), School of Earth Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Zhuo-Er Wang, Rui Cao, Hong Ding, Yong-Tong Huang, Zhi-Hui Song & Jing-Yu Wu

  2. Key Laboratory of Western China’s Environmental Systems, Ministry of Education, China, College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Su-Ting Ding

  3. School of Earth Sciences, Lanzhou University, 222 South Tianshui Road, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Jing-Yu Wu

Authors
  1. Zhuo-Er Wang
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  2. Rui Cao
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  3. Hong Ding
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  4. Yong-Tong Huang
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  5. Zhi-Hui Song
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  6. Su-Ting Ding
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  7. Jing-Yu Wu
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Correspondence to Jing-Yu Wu.

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Wang, ZE., Cao, R., Ding, H. et al. Fossil samaras of Acer L. (Sapindaceae) from the Upper Pliocene of western Yunnan, southwestern China. Palaeobio Palaeoenv 103, 695–710 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12549-023-00575-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12549-023-00575-1

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