First anatomically characterized wood from the Tertiary of Moravia: Spiroplatanoxylon from the area of Austerlitz (Southern Moravia, Czech Republic)
Abstract
A new silicified angiosperm wood from the alluvial sediments in Vážany nad Litavou (SW of Slavkov/Austerlitz near Brno, Vyškov district) is described. The wood is diffuse-porous with indistinct growth ring boundaries.
Vessels are exclusively solitary with helical thickenings and scalariform perforation plates. Rays are very high and up to 18 cells wide, homocellular to slightly heterocellular.
Crystals are present in axial parenchyma mostly in chambered cells, rarely in idioblasts. The fossil is attributed to Spiroplatanoxylon mueller-stollii Süss.
Other species of Spiroplatanoxylon are also discussed. Wood anatomical descriptions from the eastern part of the Czech Republic published so far deal either with the Silesian Tertiary or describe only partially lignified probably Quaternary material; therefore the present paper can be considered as the first detailed anatomical description of the Tertiary wood from Moravia.