A New Fossil Conifer from the Triassic of North America: Implications for Models of Ovulate Cone Scale Evolution

Vegetative shoots, ovulate cones, and putative seeds of Conewagia longiloba gen. et sp. nov., a fossil conifer from the Upper Triassic New Oxford Formation of York County, Pennsylvania, are described. Vegetative shoots represent up to three orders of branches bearing robust, spirally arranged leaves. Leaves are somewhat flattened and falcate with a papillate cuticle. Ovulate cones bear closely spaced, helically arranged bract-scale complexes. Ovulate cone scales possess a stalklike basal portion fused to a subtending bract, with an expanded upper part consisting of 11 proximally fused foliar components oriented in a single plane. Each component forms a narrow, toothlike lobe on the distal cone scale margin. The acute apex of the bract is free and lies adjacent to a groove in the abaxial cone scale surface. Dispersed seeds with a longitudinal ridge or rudimentary wing may have been produced by this conifer. The 11 ovulate cone scale foliar components of C. longiloba are the greatest number known in any early Mesozoic conifer, and the taxon helps to fill a previously unappreciated temporal gap in the fossil record between the Paleozoic and modern conifers that have numerous ovulate cone scale components.