Needles and seed cones of Pinus premassoniana sp. nov., and associated pollen cone from the upper Miocene in East China

A long shoot with needles and two immature seed cones, and some isolated organs of shoot, needles and seed cones from the late Miocene Shengxian Formation in Zhejiang Province, East China are described. A detailed comparison of the gross morphology and cuticle micromorphology of needles and seed cones with previously published Cenozoic fossils and related extant pine species reveals that the present fossils can be identified as a new species, Pinus premassoniana sp. nov., which has the closest affinity with extant Pinus massoniana. A pollen cone with copious bisaccate pollen grains from the same locality is identified as an indeterminate species of subgenus Pinus. The pollen grains show a verrucate external sculpture on the corpus and sacci and an alveolae internal structure in the sacci. The fossil needle cuticles and pollen cone of the genus Pinus from China are reported for the first time. The modern distribution indicates that P. premassoniana sp. nov. should also live under a warm and humid climate. Hitherto, there is no any reliable fossil record that has an affinity with the extant P. massoniana. The occurrence of the present fossils suggests that P. premassoniana has existed in East China since at least in the late Miocene.