Anatomically Preserved Seed Cones of the Pinaceae From the Early Cretaceous of Virginia

A collection of anatomically preserved conifer cones from the Early Cretaceous of Virginia contains two new species of the extinct pinaceous genus Pityostrobus. Superficially, the fossil cones resemble those of modern species of Picea. However, the fossils reveal such a peculiar mixture of anatomical features that they cannot be assigned to any extant genus of the Pinaceae. One of the new species, Pityostrobus hueberi , is most comparable with Pityostrobus corneti Alvin from the Early Cretaceous of Belgium. Pityostrobus virginiana , the other new species, differs from all other members of the genus in only slight—but nonetheless significant—attributes. Pityostrobus hueberi and P. virginiana are the first species of this genus to be reported from Early Cretaceous sediments of the North American Atlantic Coastal Plain. As such, they increase our knowledge of the structural variation exhibited by ancient members of the Pinaceae.