© P. Wilf.The monotypic genus Papuacedrus is today restricted to montane rainforests of New Guinea and the Moluccas, but its scarce fossil record includes Tasmania and Antarctica.
Fossil plants are windows to the past, providing us with clues as to what our planet looked like millions of years ago. Not only do fossils tell us which species were present before human-recorded history, but they can provide information about the climate and how and when lineages may have dispersed around the world. Identifying fossil plants can be tricky, however, when plant organs fail to be preserved or when only a few sparse parts can be found.
In the November
issue of the
American Journal of Botany, Peter Wilf (of Pennsylvania State University) and his U.S. and Argentine colleagues published their recent discovery of abundant fossilized specimens of a conifer previously known as
"Libocedrus" prechilensis found in Argentinean Patagonia. This plant was first described in 1938 based on one fossil vegetative branch whose characteristics were said to most closely match those of a living South American dry, cold-climate conifer found in the study area:
Austrocedrus (Libocedrus) chilensis, the Cordilleran Cypress.
However, numerous characteristics of the leaves, including their distinctive shape and stomatal arrangements, as well as seed cone details of the newly discovered specimens entirely match those of extant
Papuacedrus, a closely related genus, currently found only in tropical, montane New Guinea and the Moluccas.
