An Upper Triassic upland flora from north-central New Mexico, USA

A flora consisting chiefly of the remains of plants that probably inhabited an upland region occurs in strata that correlate with the Upper Triassic Chinle Formation and has been assigned to the Upper Triassic Carita Creek Formation in north-central New Mexico. This flora includes mostly the remains of a variety of coniferous plant megafossils including the foliage Brachyphyllum comancheanum Ash, sp. nov., cones assigned to Masculostrobus lafonii Ash, sp. nov., and Alostrobus traversei Ash, gen. et sp. nov., dispersed cone scales herein named Pityoidolepis colbertii Ash, sp. nov., and seeds assigned to Samaropsis lamyensis Ash, sp. nov., S. romeri Ash, sp. nov., S. finchii Ash, sp. nov., S. bigelowii Ash, sp. nov., and S. whitei Ash, sp. nov. The flora also contains a few small fragments of stems and leaves of the horsetail Neocalamites sp., several small leaves of Pelourdea poleoensis (Daugherty) Arnold, 1964 emend. Ash, 1987, and a samara of the enigmatic gymnosperm Dinophyton spinosus Ash, 1970c emend. Krassilov et Ash, 1988. In contrast, most coeval Upper Triassic floras of the southwestern United States are comprised of abundant horsetails, ferns, cycadophytes, and fossils of uncertain affinity, all of which have mesic features such as superficial stomata and thin cuticles and probably inhabited lowland areas such as floodplains and swamps. The new flora is noteworthy because it is the only upland flora of Late Triassic age that has been recognized in this region and demonstrates that the adjacent uplands were covered with diverse coniferous vegetation. As such, the flora may include upland representatives of major groups of plants which do not appear in the fossil record until later in the Mesozoic. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.