The first Cenozoic Equisetum from New Zealand

Equisetum is described for the first time from Cenozoic deposits of New Zealand. The fossils derive from two early to earliest middle Miocene assemblages in South Island, New Zealand. The fossils are ascribed tentatively to subgenus Equisetum based on their possession of whorled branch scars, but they cannot be assigned with confidence to a formal species. The decline of equisetaleans, otherwise unknown from the Cenozoic of the New Zealand-Australian-Antarctic domain, was possibly a consequence of severe environmental changes - particularly, abrupt shifts in the temperature and soil moisture regime - experienced by this region in the Neogene, coupled with competition from opportunistic angiosperms.