Rectification of invalidly published new names for plants from the late Eocene of North Bohemia

Valid publication of new names of fossil plant taxa published since 1 January 1996 requires a diagnosis or description in English, besides other requirements included in the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (Melbourne Code) adopted by the Eighteenth International Botanical Congress, Melbourne, Australia, July 2011 (McNeill et al. 2012). In order to validate names published from the late Eocene flora of the Staré Sedlo Formation, North Bohemia, diagnosed only in German (Knobloch et al. 1996), English translations are provided, including references to the type material and further relevant information

New fossil records of Ceratozamia (Zamiaceae, Cycadales) from the European Oligocene and lower Miocene

New compression leaf material of Ceratozamia (Zamiaceae) has been recognised in the European Cenozoic. A leaflet of Ceratozamia floersheimensis (Engelhardt) Kvaček was recovered among unidentified material from the Oligocene of Trbovlje, former Trifail, Slovenia, housed in old collections of the Austrian Geological Survey, Vienna. It is similar in morphology and epidermal anatomy to other specimens previously studied from the lower Oligocene of Flörsheim, Germany and Budapest, Hungary. A fragmentary leaflet assigned to C. hofmannii Ettingsh. was recovered in the uppermost part of the Most Formation (Most Basin in North Bohemia, Czech Republic) and dated by magnetostratigraphy and cyclostratigraphy to CHRON C5Cn.3n, that is, the latest early Miocene. It yielded excellently preserved epidermal structures, permitting confirmation of the generic affinity and a more precise comparison with this lower Miocene species previously known from Austria (Münzenberg, Leoben Basin) and re-investigated earlier. Both the Oligocene and Miocene populations of Ceratozamia are based on isolated disarticulated leaflets matching some living representatives in the size and slender form of the leaflets. Such ceratozamias thrive today in extratropical areas near the present limits of distribution of the genus along the Sierra Madre Orientale in north-eastern Mexico, in particular C. microstrobila Vovides & J.D. Rees and others of the C. latifolia complex, as well as C. hildae G.P. Landry & M.C. Wilson (“bamboo cycad”). The occurrence of Ceratozamia suggests subtropical to warm-temperate, almost frostless climate and a high amount of precipitation. The accompanied fossil vegetation of both species corresponds well with the temperature regime. While the Oligocene species in Hungary probably thrived under sub-humid conditions, the remaining occurrences of fossil Ceratozamia were connected with humid evergreen to mixed-mesophytic forests

Late Oligocene macrofloras from fluviatile siliciclastic facies of the Köln Formation at the south-eastern border of the Lower Rhine Embayment (North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany)

The leaf remains described herein came from the oldest sites of the Cainozoic deposits in the Lower Rhine Embayment, located in the Siebengebirge Volcanic Field at the south-eastern border of this basin, in the area of Siebengebirge and vicinity. These revisited floras are bound to pre-volcanic siliciclastic facies of the Siebengebirge Mts., interpreted as marginal facies of the Köln Formation. Chronostratigraphically they are assigned to the late Oligocene (Chattian). The described leaf remains are partially compressions with preserved epidermal anatomy, and therefore highly useful for systematic determination of leaf impressions recovered from other localities of siliciclastic facies. On account of the epidermal characteristics of leaf compressions varying in gross morphology, the previously determined taxa Quercus goepperti, Laurus phoeboides, and Persea speciosa all fall into the abundantly represented Eotrigonobalanus furcinervis. The siliciclastic deposits originated in coastal and flood plain areas within fluviatile environments of variable deposition energy. Remains of Taxodium dubium, Eotrigonobalanus furcinervis, Populus germanica, and Daphnogene cinnamomifolia dominate among the recovered fossils. The general aspects of this plant assemblage correspond, together with their sedimentary settings, to riparian forest vegetation with mesophytic elements