Fig 1.
Fig 2.
Fossil locality showing Ningming County of Guangxi, South China.
Fig 3.
Morphological characteristics of Paliurus favonii and similar extant species for morphological comparison.
A–G. Morphological characteristics of Paliurus favonii. A. Specimen no. LDGSW-2014-222. D. Specimen no. LDGSW-2014-223. G. Specimen no. LDGSW-2014-224. B, E. Showing the distinctly domed and indehiscent endocarp (arrow). C, F. Showing obvious persistent receptacular rim (arrow). H. Extant Paliurus hemsleyanus. I. Extant Paliurus orientalis. J. Extant Cyclocarya paliurus (Juglandaceae). A, D, G. Scale bars = 5.0 mm. B, C, E, F. Scale bars = 1.0 mm. H–J. Scale bars = 10.0 mm.
Fig 4.
Anatomical characteristics of Paliurus favonii and Paliurus hemsleyanus.
A–C. Endocarp epidermal characteristics of Paliurus favonii under light micrographs, showing undulate cell walls. C. Magnification of stomatal apparatus (arrow) from B (arrow), showing anomocytic stoma. D. Epidermal characteristics of Paliurus favonii under SEM. E, F. Internal anatomy of Paliurus favonii under SEM, showing three layers structure of the endocarp. G–I. Wing epidermal characteristics of extant Paliurus hemsleyanus, showing anomocytic stoma (arrow). A–C, G–I. Scale bars = 50.0 μm.
Table 1.
Comparision between Paliurus and other taxa with similar fruit morphology.
Table 2.
Morphological characteristics of extant and fossil Paliurus species (characteristic data from Burge and Manchester [4]).
Table 3.
Morphological characteristics of present and other known fossil specimens (characteristic data from Burge and Manchester [4], Li et al. [10] and Correa et al. [30]).
Fig 5.
Palaeogeographic distribution of Paliurus macrofossils (including fruits, leaves and endocarps) [4, 10, 41].
A. Eocene, at 41.2 Ma. B. Oligocene, at 28.1 Ma. C. Miocene, at 13.82 Ma. D. Pliocene, at 3.6 Ma.