The Carboniferous (Serpukhovian) macroflora from the “Coteaux du Pont Barré”, Beaulieu-sur-Layon (Maine-et-Loire), South of the Armorican Massif, France

The “Coteaux du Pont Barré” in Beaulieu-sur-Layon is a Regional Natural Reserve which is home to exceptional flora and fauna. Recently fossil plants have been discovered at the site adding to its natural heritage significance. The exposure which is part of the “Sillon Houiller de la Basse-Loire” contains Serpukhovian-age (330–320 Ma) remains of sphenophytes, ferns, and lyginopteridopsid and cycadopsid pteridosperms, which are described for the first time as well as the geology of the site. Most Carboniferous macroflora previously described from the Maine-et-Loire has been based on ex situ specimens from now abandoned and inaccessible coal mines. The newly described macroflora shows evidence of in situ remains and differs somewhat in composition from those reported from the coal workings, especially in the total absence of lycopsids and Calymmotheca pteridosperms, and instead having abundant medullosalean foliage (Neuralethopteris). The co-occurrence of Sphenopteris elegans and Neuralethopteris densifolia suggests a slightly younger age compared to the macrofloras documented from the coal-bearing deposits. However, this could be an ecological consequence of the flora growing in better-drained substrate habitats.

Citation

Christine Strullu-Derrien, Michel Ballèvre, Alan R.T. Spencer, Erwan Guillou, Jean-Paul Gislard, Hubert Lardeux & Christopher J. Cleal (2023) The Carboniferous (Serpukhovian) macroflora from the “Coteaux du Pont Barré”, Beaulieu-sur-Layon (Maineet- Loire), South of the Armorican Massif, France, Botany Letters, 170:2, 183-193, DOI: 10.1080/23818107.2023.2183899

Type

Journal Article

Item Description

Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The linked document is the published version of the article.
NHM Repository

ISSN

2381-8107

EISSN

2381-8115