Cuticles of Paripteris Gothan, 1941 (Pteridospermopsida) from the Westphalian of Poland

 

Authors: Šimůnek Z

Published in: Bulletin of Geosciences, volume 85, issue 2; pages: 353 - 360; Received 22 March 2010; Accepted in revised form 30 April 2010; Online 8 June 2010

Keywords: Paripteris, cuticular analysis, Westphalian,

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Abstract

Leaf cuticles of two Carboniferous trigonocarpalean “medullosan” pteridosperms of the genus Paripteris Gothan are described. P. gigantea (Sternberg) Gothan and P. linguaefolia (Bertrand) Laveine have strikingly similar cuticles. The adaxial cuticles have elongated tetragonal cells orientated parallel to the veins. The cells of the abaxial cuticle are probably polygonal with only faintly discernible anticlinal walls. The haplocheilic stomata are deeply sunken in the case of P. linguaefolia as revealed under SEM. Putative proximal papillae seen light-microscopically appear to be structures encased by sunken stomata. The differences between P. gigantea and P. linguaefolia are restricted to the presence of trichomes respectively trichome bases and differences in stomatal density values. There are two concepts of the intrageneric classification of Paripteris. In contrast to the widely used traditional binomial classification, Zhang et al. (1993) preferred to provisionally interpret all the so far described species assigned to Paripteris as formae of P. gigantea. The new information on cuticular structures neither confirms, nor fully disproves either one of the above-mentioned classifications.

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