Cedroxylon lesbium (U-NGER) KRAUS from the Petrified Forest of Lesbos, lower Miocene of Greece and its possible relationship to Cedrus
Abstrakt
The Petrified Forest of Lesbos has been the subject of the palaeobotanical research since the 19th century, but a number of inconsistencies still remain. One of them concerns the fossils described over 100 years ago that are characterized by lack of the accompanied illustrations, missing or even lost type material, rather general and uninformative descriptions and finally weak evidence about stratigraphy and exact location of fossiliferous sites.
We present here an accurate interpretation of Cedroxylon lesbium (UNGER) KRAUS from Sigri (Petrified Forest area, western peninsula of Lesbos Island), which is hosted at the collections of the Natural History Museum of Vienna, Austria. The specimen, which is designated here as a lectotype, is compared with living Cedrus wood, its attribution to Cedroxylon is discussed and finally, a new combination for its denomination is proposed: Taxodioxylon lesbium (UNGER) MANTZOUKA & SAKALA, comb. nov.