Abstract
The sediments of La Rinconada mine (Ribesalbes-Alcora basin, Province of Castellón, Eastern Spain) have yielded one of the Early Miocene's richest megafloral assemblages in the southwestern Mediterranean. At this site, we have found a large amount of leaf compressions and impressions without preserved cuticle. We have identified a total of 31 species of vascular plants: 1 horsetail, 1 fern, 4 conifers, 23 arboreal or bushy dicotyledoneous angiosperms and 2 monocotyledoneous angiosperms. These fossils reveal the presence during the first half of the so-called Miocene Climatic Optimum of a fluvial-lacustrine flora with well diversified mixed broadleaved deciduous and coniferous taxa. Arctotertiary elements dominate the assemblage, whereas Palaeotropical taxa scarcely occur. The occurrence of Trigonobalanopsis exacantha and Trigonobalanopsis rhamnoides is conspicuous as these are common in humid subtropical evergreen vegetation during the climatic optima in the European Oligocene and Miocene. In the La Rinconada outcrop, there is a noteworthy lack of some taxa such as Juglandaceae, Nyssa and Quercus in comparison with other contemporaneous European floras.
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