New Species of Conifer Wood from the Baqueró Group (Early Cretaceous) of Patagonia

Abstract

The Baqueró Group is a continental sequence deposited during the late Aptian in Patagonia (Césari et al., 2011; Limarino et al., 2012; Perez Loinaze et al., 2013). During more than fifty years the Baqueró deposits have been yielding an exceptionally rich and diverse paleoflora including shoots and leaves preserved as impression/compressions, charcoalified and silicified stems and woods, and isolated palynomorphs, representing diverse plant groups, such as ferns, cycads, bennettites, conifers, and early angiosperms (Archangelsky, 2003; Del Fueyo et al., 2007; Limarino et al., 2012; and cites therein). A few years ago, Vera and Césari (2012) described the first permineralized woods recovered from the Baqueró strata. They identified two taxa they referred to Agathoxylon sp. and Brachyoxylon sp. cf. B. boureaui Serra, 1966. Recently, Philippe et al. (2014) referred Brachyoxylon boureaui Serra, 1966 to Shimakuroxylon japonicum (Shimakura) Philippe, Boura, Oh and Pons, 2014, excluding Vera and Cesari’s (2012) specimens. As a result, the taxonomic placement of the Patagonian woods remained uncertain. In this work, we propose a new species of Brachyoxylon to include these specimens.