A NEW TAXODIACEOUS SEED CONE FROM THE OLIGOCENE OF WASHINGTON

Cunninghamiostrobus goedertii is described as a new species based on permineralized seed cones from the Early Oligocene of Washington. The fossils come from the Makah Formation and were found on the northern shore of the Olympic Peninsula. The cone consists of numerous bract-scale complexes arranged helically around a central axis. Each bract-scale complex has a large bract bearing a small flap of tissue adaxially that represents the ovuliferous scale. Up to three seeds were produced on each complex. The vascular trace to the bract-scale complex diverges from the vascular cylinder of the cone axis as a concentric strand. This divides in the outer cortex of the axis to form a large collateral bract tract abaxially and a minute scale trace adaxially. The latter continues outward to supply the ovuliferous scale. The bract trace divides, forming many strands outward which occur in a row with transfusion tissue between them. Many resin canals also occur in the bract. The new cone combines features found in modern cones of Athrotaxis, Cunninghamia, and Taiwania but is most similar to Cunninghamiostrobus yubariensis from the Late Cretaceous of Japan. THE TAXODIACEAE has an impressive fossil record extending from the Triassic. Many of the known Jurassic and Cretaceous seed cones of this family have sufficient structure to permit comparison of their anatomical construction with that of modem forms (Miller, 1977). While certain taxodiaceous genera were important members of Cenozoic floras, remains of reproductive organs are preserved mostly as imprints that can only be compared in gross morphology to modem counterparts. The new cone is important in being anatomically preserved. Its bract-scale complexes consist mainly of a large bract with the ovuliferous scale evident only as a short length of tissue projecting from the adaxial side of bract (Fig. 3, 12). Up to three seeds occur on the adaxial side of certain bract-scale complexes and, while their point of attachment is not visible in the available sections, they are presumed to have been connected to the scale as in modem counterparts. The new cone is similar to those of the modem taxodiaceous genera Athrotaxis Don, Cunninghamia R. Brown ex Richard, and Taiwania Hayata and to the fossil genera Cun1 Received for publication 1 February 1988; revision accepted 24 May 1988. This research was supportedbyNSFGrantBSR-8606876 to CNM. The authors thank James and Mary Goedert of Tacoma, WA, and the Los Angeles County Museum for donating most of the fossils on which the study is based. Wesley Wehr, Burke Museum, University of Washington, Seattle, provided a specimen and information about the collecting localities and about Cunninghamia chaneyi. Gary Eichhom, Bigfork, MT, contributed additional specimens, and Robert Petty made the line drawings. ninghamiostrobus Stopes and Fujii, Elatides Heer, and Sphenolepis Schenk. These fossil genera show that this lineage of the Taxodiaceae extends from the Middle Jurassic. The new species differs from modem forms sufficiently to require classification in Cunninghamiostrobus, and it compares closely with C. yubariensis Stopes and Fujii, from the Late Cretaceous of Japan. These two fossils then document a clade of Cunninghamia-like conifers that persisted for some 50 million years but became extinct before the present. MATERIALS AND METHODSSix specimens of the new cone are known. All occur in concretions that were found on the beach along the southern shore of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. They and the many other beach concretions -have been traced to the Makah Formation of the Twin Rivers Group that contains similar concretions within the Jansen Creek Member and is exposed in places in low cliffs along the shore just behind the beach (Rau, 1964; Snavely et al., 1 980). Several different collectors have sent fossils for study, and several types of conifer cones have been reported (Underwood and Miller, 1980; Miller, 1986; Crabtree, 1987; Crabtree and Miller, 1989). James and Gail Goedert of Tacoma, Washington, sent us the holotype and two other specimens of the new species which is named in their honor. The holotype and one other specimen were found about 900 m west of the mouth of Whiskey Creek, while the remainder were collected about 300 m northwest of the mouth of Jansen Creek nearly 50 km to the west.