Anatomical and palaecological consideration of Neogene Terminalioxylon (Combretaceae) from Egypt

Abstract

Anatomical features of three species of the genus Terminalioxylon Schonfeld emend. Madel-Angeliewa & Muller-Stoll viz., T. edwardsii, T. geinitzii and T. primigenium were fully described and illustrated based on fossil wood specimens collected from three lower Miocene sites in the northern part of the Western Desert of Egypt viz., Gebel El-Khashab, Wadi Natrun and Cairo-Bahariya desert road. Wood functional traits such as vessel porosity, vessel grouping, perforation plates, vessel diameters, vessel frequency and vessel element length; along with the probable nearest living relatives are used to reconstruct the palaeoclimatic and palaecological assumptions for the three described species. These data indicate that the three species were supposed to have inhabited lowland tropical dry forests where T. edwardsii and T. primigenium were medium-large trees with deep roots, thus not subjected to water stress in dry periods; while T. geinitzii was a shrub or small tree with shallow roots exposed to drought in seasonal dry periods.