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Fossil evidence of core monocots in the Early Cretaceous

Nature Plants volume 5, pages 691–696 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

All the major clades of angiosperms have a fossil record that extends back to more than 100 million years ago (Early Cretaceous), mostly in agreement with molecular dating. However, the Early Cretaceous record of monocots is very poor compared to other angiosperms. Their herbaceous nature has been invoked to explain this rarity, but biogeography could also be an explanation. Unfortunately, most of the Early Cretaceous angiosperm record comes from northern mid-latitudes. The Crato plattenkalk limestone offers a unique window into the Early Cretaceous vegetation of the tropics and has already yielded monocot fossils. Here, we describe a whole monocotyledonous plant from root to reproductive organs that is anatomically preserved. The good preservation of the fossils allowed the evaluation of reproductive, vegetative and anatomical characteristics of monocots, leading to a robust identification of this fossil as a crown monocot. Its occurrence in Northern Gondwana supports the possibility of an early radiation of monocots in the tropics.

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Fig. 1: Holotype and paratype of Cratolirion bognerianum gen. et sp. nov.
Fig. 2: Anatomy of Cratolirion bognerianum gen. et sp. nov.
Fig. 3: Reproductive organ and phylogenetic position of Cratolirion bognerianum gen. et sp. nov.

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Data availability

The authors declare that all other data supporting the findings of this study are available in the paper and its supplementary information files or from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the institutions and researchers that made this publication possible. The work has been improved through discussions with various colleagues, especially J. Bogner (Botanical Garden, Munich), P.J. Rudall and B. Mohr. We would also like to thank the staff of the Museum of Natural History, Berlin, L. Maitas for technical help at the herbarium, and C. Radke and H.-J. Götz for part of the photography. We also acknowledge the permission of the curator R. Vogt to the authors for use of the Herbarium of the Berlin Botanical Garden (B) for comparative work. Funding was provided by the German Funding Agency (DFG), which provides support for C.C. (grant No. CO 1060/3-1). There is also a contribution to the Project CNPq 310823/2016-1 Research Productivity Grant for M.E.C.B. as senior collaborator professor in IGc/USP, Brazil.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Museum für Naturkunde, Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science, Berlin, Germany

    Clément Coiffard

  2. Helmholtz-Center Berlin for Materials and Energy, Institute of Applied Materials, Berlin, Germany

    Nikolay Kardjilov & Ingo Manke

  3. Institute of Geosciences, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    Mary E. C. Bernardes-de-Oliveira

Authors
  1. Clément Coiffard
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  2. Nikolay Kardjilov
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  3. Ingo Manke
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  4. Mary E. C. Bernardes-de-Oliveira
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Contributions

C.C. contributed to the design and scope of the paper and the evaluations of the fossil taxa discussed in the paper. N.K. and I.M. provided the data and tomographic analysis of the fossil. C.C., N.K. and M.E.C.B. contributed to writing and revising the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Clément Coiffard.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information: Nature Plants thanks James Doyle and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Fossil analysis, Supplementary Fig. 1 and matrix.

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Coiffard, C., Kardjilov, N., Manke, I. et al. Fossil evidence of core monocots in the Early Cretaceous. Nat. Plants 5, 691–696 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-019-0468-y

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