Authors: Friðgeir Grímsson, Guido W. Grimm, Reinhard Zetter Background. The Saururaceae, a very small family of Piperales comprising only six species in four genera, have a relatively scanty fossil record outside of Europe. The phylogenetic relationships of the four genera to each other are resolved, with the type genus Saururus occurring in both eastern North [...]
Authors: Friðgeir Grímsson, Paschalia Kapli, Christa-Charlotte Hofmann, Reinhard Zetter, Guido W. Grimm Background: We revisit the palaeopalynological record of Loranthaceae, using pollen ornamentation to discriminate lineages and to test molecular dating estimates for the diversification of major lineages. Methods: Fossil Loranthaceae pollen from the Eocene and Oligocene are analysed and documented using scanning-electron microscopy. These [...]
Authors: Johannes M. Bouchal, Serdar Mayda, Reinhard Zetter, Friðgeir Grímsson, Funda Akgün, Thomas Denk Middle Miocene deposits belonging to the Eskihisar Formation exposed at the Tınaz lignite mine, Yatağan Basin, Muğla, southwestern Turkey, were investigated palynologically. Nine spores, aplanospores/zygospores and cysts of fungi and algae, seven moss and fern spores, 12 gymnosperm pollen types, and [...]
Authors: Thomas Denk, Dimitrios Velitzelos, Tuncay H. Güner, Johannes M. Bouchal, Friðgeir Grímsson, Guido W. Grimm Sclerophyllous oaks (genus Quercus) play important roles in Neogene ecosystems of south-western Eurasia. Modern analogues (‘nearest living relatives’) for these oaks have been sought among five of six infrageneric lineages of Quercus, distributed across the entire Northern Hemisphere. A [...]
Authors: Friðgeir Grímsson, Reinhard Zetter, Conrad C. Labandeira, Michael S. Engel, Torsten Wappler The middle Eocene Messel and Eckfeld localities are renowned for their excellently preserved faunas and diverse floras. Here we describe for the first time pollen from insect-pollinated plants found in situ on well-preserved ancient bees using light and scanning electron microscopy. There [...]
Authors: Friðgeir Grímsson, Guido W. Grimm, Reinhard Zetter, Thomas Denk Modern lineages of the beech family, Fagaceae, one of the most important north-temperate families of woody flowering plants, have been traced back to the early Eocene. In contrast, molecular differentiation patterns indicate that the Fagus lineage, Fagoideae, with a single modern genus, evolved much earlier [...]
Authors: Friðgeir Grímsson, Gunver Krarup Pedersen, Guido W. Grimm, Reinhard Zetter The Cretaceous and Palaeogene floras of western Greenland that were initially described as part of the classical work “Flora fossilis arctica” by Oswald Heer in the 19th century are currently under revision. The Nuussuaq Basin has repeatedly been investigated by geologists and marine invertebrate [...]
Authors: Johannes M. Bouchal, Reinhard Zetter, Friðgeir Grímsson, Thomas Denk We investigated a palynological section from middle Miocene sediments at Eskihisar (south-western Anatolia) to establish biogeographic links of the palynoflora and to infer the palaeoenvironment. Four algal palynomorphs, nine spore taxa, eight gymnosperms, three monocots and 67 dicot pollen types were encountered and investigated using [...]
Authors: Torsten Wappler, Friðgeir Grímsson Iceland is the only known terrestrial place in the subarctic North Atlantic providing a fairly continuous sedimentary and plant fossil record over the past 15 million years. While the basic palaeobotanical framework of this pattern has been well established during the last decade, less attention has been paid to the [...]
Authors: Friðgeir Grímsson, Guido W. Grimm, Barbara Meller, Johannes M. Bouchal, Reinhard Zetter. An ongoing investigation of the middle Miocene (Sarmatian) palynoflora from the Lavanttal Basin continues to show that it contains an extremely rich assemblage of angiosperm taxa. The Fagales to Rosales pollen record documented here contains 34 different taxa belonging to the Betulaceae [...]
