nouvelle famille de plantes carnivores découverte en Chine !
Posté : 04 juil. 2005 22:11
hello,
une nouvelle famille de plantes carnivores a été découverte, sous forme de fossiles en Chine.
la plante, Archaeamphora longicervia Li serait apparentée aux Sarraceniacées , et on en est sûr car on a retrouvé des parties végétales fossilisées !!!
voici un message de paul Temple sur la mailing list internationale, et une description plus complète prise sur le forum américain :
une nouvelle famille de plantes carnivores a été découverte, sous forme de fossiles en Chine.
la plante, Archaeamphora longicervia Li serait apparentée aux Sarraceniacées , et on en est sûr car on a retrouvé des parties végétales fossilisées !!!
voici un message de paul Temple sur la mailing list internationale, et une description plus complète prise sur le forum américain :
Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2005 10:58:42 +0100
From: "Temple, Paul" <paul.temple@eds.com>
Subject: [CP] New carnivorous plant genus found!!! (No - it isn't
April 1)
To: <Cp@omnisterra.com>
A new a new plant taxon has just been announced following it's recent
discovery in China. The plant is named Archaeamphora longicervia Li and
represents a brand new genus and species.
However, don't all rush to try to be the first to grow it. It became
extinct millions of years ago. Yes, this is an early cretaceous fossil
plant but, amazingly, there is a fossil record of the plant itself
rather than just of seed or pollen. In fact, although fossil records
for seeds and pollen of carnivorous plants have been published (for
example see Fossil Aldrovanda,, DR. John D. Degreef, Carnivorous Plant
Newsletter 26: 93-97, 1997), this is believed to be the first record of
actual plant material being found for any type of Pitcher Plant.
Indeed, in his 1997 article Dr. Degreef states that with regard to what
Paeoaldrovanda looked like, "We have no idea, and it is very improbable
that leaf fossils from Aldrovanda will ever be found." So it is
remarkable that the new fossil genus has sufficient fossil record to
show that it was a Sarracenia type plant (i.e. it's sarraceniacean).
This is also thought to be the earliest record of the existence of any
carnivorous plant.
For those interested in reading more details, here's the reference:
Ji, Q., H. Li, L. M. Bowe, Y. Liu, & D. W. Taylor, 2004, Early
Cretaceous Archaefructus eoflora sp. nov. with bisexual flowers from
Beipiao, western Liaoning, China. Acta Geologica Sinica 78: 883-896.
Cheers
Paul
Date: Sun, 3 Jul 2005 08:47:51 -0700 (PDT)
From: Tre Bond <treaqum1@yahoo.com>
Subject: [CP] RE: New species
To: Cp@omnisterra.com
For those of you not on Terraforums Ozzy posted this article:
With the carnivorous pitchers and beautiful flowers, sarraceniacean plants are found with three genera separately distributed in South and North America. They are considered neither related to the monospecific Cephalotaceae in Australia, nor the monogeneric Nepenthaceae in the Old World tropics (including southern China). For lacking fossil record, whether sarraceniacean genera originated from South Africa or alternately within North America has been uncertain. Here we report the first fossil sarraceniacean plant, Archaeamphora longicervia, from the Jianshangou Formation, Low Cretaceous, at Beipiao, western Liaoning, China. The plants are herbaceous and similar to modern Sarracenia purpurea to some extent in having spirally arranged pitchers and phyllodia-like tubular leaves with parallel major veins. They can be reconstructed together with intimately associated seeds that are reticulate-tuberculate and winged, morphologically resembling the seeds of Sarracenia the most. Furthermore,
using GC-MS we have found the fossil molecular peak with oleanane in the extracts that were directly leached from three fossil pitcher samples. The extracts were then treated with zeolite molecular sieve to remove non-oleanane isomers and thus confirm the existence of oleanane through GC-MS analysis again. Oleanane has been considered to be a biomarker of angiosperms, and it has not been found in extant gymnosperms. Several other fossil and sedimentary samples collected from the same site were also analyzed, but no oleanane has been found yet. The existence of fossil molecule oleanane suggests the fossil plants should belong to angiosperms rather than gymnosperms, while the unique pitcher structure and characteristic sarraceniacean seeds lead to a comparison to sarraceniacean plants. Archaeamphora demonstrates the oldest, and the only fossil record of sarraceniacean plants. China does not have living sarraceniacean plants, but very few species of Nepenthaceae. Obviously, this
fossil record from China provides us significant data in study of the origin, evolution, and phylogenetic relationships of pitcher plants.
Occurrence of Crown Eudicot Angiosperm - Sarraceniacean-like Pitcher Plants - in the Early Cretaceous, China.
Recently, the earliest known angiosperm Archaefructus liaoningensis and A. sinensis are suspected to be of possible crown group of angiosperms rather than sister taxa of all extant angiosperms. However, multiple lines of evidence (e.g., cymose inflorescence, small bisexual flowers, orthotropous ovules, etc.) found on a new species, Archaefructus eoflora*, suggest that Archaefructus is a neither primitive nor crown angiosperm, but among the basal dicots. Another coeval fossil plant, Sinocarpus, is proposed to be a basal eudicot. Thus, although recent molecular studies suggest that crown angiosperms should have occurred between 148-208 mya, no true crown eudicot angiosperms have been found in the Yixian Formation (125 mya) yet.
Here I report a new fossil plant taxon, Archaeamphora longicervia gen. et sp. nov. Li, from the site of Archaefructus liaoningensis in the same Yixian Formation, northeastern China. The plants are herbaceous and similar to modern sarraceniaceans in having spirally arranged developed/underdeveloped pitchers that have parallel major veins and reticulate meshes, distinctive honey-spoon-like structures, and porous cuticularized glands on the inner surface. The intimately associated seeds are reticulate-tuberculate and winged, resembling sarraceniacean seeds. The unique pitcher and characteristic seed together suggest a relationship to Sarraceniaceae of the crown group of angiosperms. The relationship to angiosperms is also supported with fossil molecule oleanane found from Archaeamphora, using GC-MS.
Archaeamphora demonstrates the earliest carnivorous plant and the only fossil record of pitcher plants. Also, as the third genus of the earliest known angiosperms, the existence of such highly derived core eudicot angiosperm suggests that flowering plants should have originated much earlier, possibly in the Late Paleozoic as molecular clock studies predicted.
*Ji, Q., H. Li, L. M. Bowe, Y. Liu, & D. W. Taylor, 2004, Early Cretaceous Archaefructus eoflora sp. nov. with bisexual flowers from Beipiao, western Liaoning, China. Acta Geologica Sinica 78: 883-896.