Sprecher
Beschreibung
Several islands in the Aegean Sea are known for their fossil forests. Renown are the so-called petrified forests of Miocene age on the island of Lesvos, Greece, consisting of a stunning number of upright tree trunks, fallen logs, pieces of wood, and leaves on the western part of the island. The fossil trees were buried in situ in tephra by multiple eruptions in the early Miocene. Studies on the standing trunks, wood, and leaves show that mixed forests of conifers and angiosperms flourished on Lesvos some 20 million years ago. While most conifers have already been identified, little is known about the woody angiosperm flora. Here we present the identification of several angiosperm and conifer woods from various localities in western Lesvos. This wood flora consists of ca. 40 specimens, representing, among others, Lauraceae, Nyssoxylon, Populoxylon, Fagaceae, and Lesbosoxylon. Among the lauraceous woods, we have identified well-known species such as Laurinoxylon czechense, as well as a new species of Laurinoxylon with numerous tiny crystals. Populoxylon wood with exclusively uniseriate rays represents another new species. Completely new to the flora is the family Nyssaceae, which went extinct in Europe in the Pliocene. The fagaceous wood is distinctive, with very wide and high rays of over 1 mm in height. Lesbosoxylon paradoxum and L. pseudoparadoxum have already been described from Lesvos, but we document new occurrences, expanding their distribution on the island. Our results provide deeper insight into the lauraceous-dominated angiosperm flora in the mixed forests growing on Lesvos during the Miocene.