Ten locular petrified fruit from the deccan intertrappean series of India

Abstract

The petrified fruit described in this paper was collected in June 1969 from the Deccan Intertrappean beds of Mohgaonkalan. The fruit is more or less round and flatish, measuring 11 X 8 mm. in size. It is ten chambered with a very poorly preserved central axis. The fruit wall is wavy with ten prominent ridges marking ten loculi. The ten septae separating the ten loculi are narrow towards the central axis and broad and dome shaped towards the peripheral wall. The fruit shows a septicidal dehiscence. Ten vascular bundles are in a ring in the central axis one against each septum. The vascular traces are seen in the septae and in the fruit wall. Each loculus is filled with a single seed occupying the whole chamber. The seed measuring 4 mm. long, 1·7 mm. broad at its broadest peripheral region and 7 mm. thick is placed in each chamber with its length at right angles to the central axis. Towards the central axis, it is narrowing down, showing micropyle in some transverse sections of the fruit.

This fruit is different from all the known fossil fruits from India. Comparisons with the living fruits have shown that it resembles most the fruits of Malvaceae. However, resemblances not being complete with any of its genera, the present fossil fruit is given a new name, Daberocarpon gerhardii, gen. et sp. nov.