Wood anatomy of the Glyptostrobus europaeus “whole-plant” from a Pliocene fossil forest of Italy

Mummified foliage, seeds and cones of Glyptostrobus europaeus (Brongniart) Unger (Taxodiaceae, or Cupressaceae s. l.) are very common within muddy sediments embedding large arboreal stumps in several Pliocene localities of northern and central Italy. Recent investigations in one of these fossil forests, which crops out 20 km North of Turin (NW Italy), in the bed of the Stura di Lanzo river, showed that the wood anatomy is also diagnostic for the genus Glyptostrobus, since the wood-type is characteristic of the recently defined morphospecies Glyptostroboxylon rudolphii Dolezych and Van der Burgh. Although connection between stumps, trunks and twigs has never been observed, the Stura di Lanzo Fossil Forest (FF) provides a very favourable condition to reconstruct the ancient taxodiaceous “whole-plant”, because there is only one common conifer type in the site's macrofossil record. The autochthonous burial of the foliage is indicated by the high frequency of randomly oriented shoots with attached cones. Therefore it is demonstrated that the plant bearing the Glyptostrobus europaeus foliage, also produced stumps and trunks with the Glyptostroboxylon rudolphii wood-type. The numerous and huge stumps of this site, and associated trunks, provide an excellent example of what was the size and habit of the Glyptostrobus europaeus “whole-plant”.