Scalarifructus

Name

Scalarifructus

Rank

Genus

Authors (Pub.)

Manchester S. R. Collinson M. E. Clark B. Judd W. S. Tiffney B. H.  

Publication

Fruit morphology, anatomy and inferred brassicalean affinities of Scalarifructus coloradensis (Knowlton) gen. et comb. nov. from the Eocene of North America and Europe [2025/11]

Journal

Annals of Botany

Annee/Jahrgang

2025

Issue

10.1093/aob/mcaf239

Page number

2

Year

2025

Parent Taxon

[Family] Brassicaceae

Fossil Status

fruits

Type

Scalarifructus coloradensis

Diagnosis

Fruits 3–4.5 times longer than wide, borne on a short pedicel, with a blunt apical stigma. Bicarpellate, syncarpous, splitting septicidally into two valves, each valve D-shaped in transverse section. Fruits 13.1–24.6 mm long, 3.2–5.9 mm wide (measured in the plane of the septum) and 5.8–6.4 mm deep (measured across both carpels), with an attenuated base and rounded apex. Each fruit with a true longitudinal septum ca. 0.10 mm thick, along which the carpels split, and a slightly thicker, ca. 0.18–0.25-mm-thick, false septum oriented at right angles to the true septum. Exocarp bearing ca. 4 external carpellary strands, commonly eroded away; mesocarp composed of isodiametric cells 0.05 mm in diameter; endocarp potentially of a few layers of thicker walled cells. Each valve bearing two parallel rows of seeds with 12–23 seeds per row. Placentation parietal and seeds possibly anatropous; seeds elliptical as viewed in longitudinal section of the fruit in plane of carpel separation, but pyriform in transverse section, the flanged edge of the seeds directed toward the periphery and lying close to the septum; seeds ca. 1.4 mm long, greatest diameter 1 mm, least diameter 0.5 mm. Testa a single layer of polygonal cells, ca. 17 μm in diameter.