A new leaf species of Proteaceae and other Gondwanan elements from the early Paleogene Lota–Coronel flora of south–central Chile

Raymond J. Carpenter; Stephen McLoughlin

doi:10.1071/SB24033

RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

Previous Contents Vol 38(1)

A new leaf species of Proteaceae and other Gondwanan elements from the early Paleogene Lota–Coronel flora of south–central Chile

Raymond J. Carpenter

^A ^* and Stephen McLoughlin ^B

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A School of Biological Sciences, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA 5005, Australia.

^B Department of Paleobiology, Swedish Museum of Natural History, SE-104 05 Stockholm, Sweden.

^* Correspondence to: raymond.carpenter@adelaide.edu.au

Handling Editor: David Cantrill

Australian Systematic Botany 38, SB24033 https://doi.org/10.1071/SB24033

Submitted: 25 September 2024 Accepted: 20 December 2024 Published: 3 February 2025

© 2025 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

Leaf fossils collected in 1908 from the Arauco–Concepción Coal Measures of Chile (the Lota–Coronel flora) during a Swedish expedition to southern South America are formally assigned to the important Gondwanan family Proteaceae as Proteaceaefolia araucoensis R.J.Carp. & McLoughlin gen. nov., sp. nov. This is the oldest South American record of macrofossils that can be assigned to Proteaceae with confidence due to the likelihood of the age dating to the latest Paleocene. The fossils lack cuticle but the large, lobed and minutely toothed form is consistent only with extant species of the subfamily Grevilleoideae (notably, Orites excelsus R.Br.) that are confined to eastern Australian rainforests. A new assessment of the Swedish Lota–Coronel collection and review of previous palynological and macrofossil studies, also provide evidence of the strong biogeographic connection that existed between southern South America and Australasia during the early Paleogene, and contradict a traditional view that several Chilean floras of this age consist wholly or largely of Neotropical taxa. Notable austral taxa include Casuarinaceae (as abundant pollen), diverse Podocarpaceae (as both foliage and pollen) and likely Cunoniaceae (leaves). No taxa with clearly Neotropical nearest living relatives have been found to date, but previous conclusions for a warm and very wet early Paleogene climate are supported.

Keywords: Arauco coal, Australasia, climate change, Gondwana, lobed leaf, Neotropics, Orites, Paleogene, plate tectonics, rainforest.

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