Ptilophyllum muelleri (Ettingsh.) comb. nov. from the Oligocene of Australia: Last of the Bennettitales?

Abstract

Several small pinnate leaves of early Oligocene age from Cethana, Tasmania, are newly described and found to be conspecific with Anomozamites muelleri Ettingsh. recorded from coeval strata at Emmaville, northern New South Wales. These fossils are most probably referable to the Bennettitales on the basis of leaf size, leaflet shape, and venation patterns, in the absence of diagnostic cuticular details. They are transferred to Ptilophyllum on the basis of leaflet morphology and represent the youngest putative bennettitalean remains yet documented. Their occurrence reinforces previous arguments that the highest-paleolatitude fragments of southeastern Gondwana provided moist temperate refugia for the survival of Mesozoic gymnosperm taxa well into the Cenozoic.