A new fossil Acmopyle with accessory transfusion tissue and potential reproductive buds: Direct evidence for ever-wet rainforests in Eocene Patagonia.

Premise: Acmopyle (Podocarpaceae) comprises two extant species from Oceania that are physiologically restricted to ever-wet rainforests, a confirmed fossil record based on leaf adpressions and cuticles in Australia since the Paleocene, and a few uncertain reports from New Zealand, Antarctica, and South America. We investigated fossil specimens with Acmopyle affinities from the early Eocene Laguna del Hunco site in Patagonia, Argentina.

Methods: We studied 42 adpression leafy-shoot fossils and included them in a total evidence phylogenetic analysis.

Rapid character scoring and tabulation of large leaf-image libraries using Adobe Bridge.

Premise: Digital image libraries are an integral part of specimen-based research. However, coding and extracting metadata for hundreds of specimens on a personal computer can be complex. In addition, most existing workflows require downsampling or platform switching and do not link character data directly to the images.

Eocene Araucaria Sect. Eutacta from Patagonia and floristic turnover during the initial isolation of South America.

Premise: Eocene floras of Patagonia document biotic response to the final separation of Gondwana. The conifer genus Araucaria, distributed worldwide during the Mesozoic, has a disjunct extant distribution between South America and Australasia. Fossils assigned to Australasian Araucaria Sect.