
doi: 10.2139/ssrn.6298543
This report describes a new coniferopsid genus and species from a silicified fossil forest in Late Pennsylvanian strata of north-central Texas. The fossil logs are found in the Fambro Sandstone Member of the Palo Pinto Formation, Canyon Group, of the Missourian (Kasimovian) Stage of the Late Pennsylvanian. The large diameter tree trunks were deposited in logjams in a wide, aggrading river on a lowland fluvial plain and appear to have been transported some distance. Only incomplete trunks were found. The largest trunk section was 25 m long and 117 cm in diameter. We calculate the resulting tree height to be 34‒40 m. The trunks are described as a new genus and species, Texoxylon fambroensis gen. et sp. nov. The pith is solid (non-septate), has isodiametric parenchyma, sclerenchyma, and sclerified axial parenchyma, possibly containing a resin-like substance although actual resin canals and sclerotic nests are absent. Xylem maturation is endarch. Individual axial bundles produce a single right-hand (dextrorse) leaf trace. An axial bundle may remain attached to the perimedullary margin between consecutive leaf traces but commonly detaches and becomes immersed in the outer pith. Leaf traces are single and change in shape from round to linear when exiting into the secondary xylem. The ontogenetic spiral is right-handed (dextrorse) and the phyllotactic fraction approximates 13/34. These trunks are similar in age, size, and general anatomical features to the coniferopsid Macdonaldodendron giganticus from New Mexico. T. fambroensis adds to the growing body of knowledge about large coniferopsids in the Late Pennsylvanian.
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