Fagus (Fagaceae) fruits, foliage, and pollen from the Middle Eocene of Pacific Northwestern North America
Fruits and leaves from the Middle Eocene of McAbee, British Columbia, and Republic, Washington, provide an earlier record for the genus Fagus than previously accepted for this member of the Fagaceae. The fruits are trigonal nuts borne within spiny four-valved cupules on long peduncles. The leaves are borne alternately on the twigs and are ovate to elliptic with craspedodromous secondary veins and simple teeth distributed one per secondary vein. The shale preserving these megafossils also contains dispersed pollen with morphology and ornamentation diagnostic of Fagus. Previously, the oldest Fagus occurrences confirmed by fruits were early Oligocene (ca. 32 Ma). The recognition of Middle Eocene (ca. 50 Ma) representatives helps to reduce the disparity between molecular evidence favoring Fagus as a primitive genus within Fagaceae, and fossil evidence, which had indicated older occurrences of Castanea and Quercus than Fagus.Key words: Eocene, Fagus, fossil, foliage, fruits, British Columbia.