Annalepis, a pioneering lycopsid genus in the recovery of the Triassic land flora in South China

Fossil plants are scarce in the Earliest Triassic marine deposits of western Guizhou and eastern Yunnan Only Annularia shirakii Lobatannularia sp Paracalamites stenocostatus Gigantopteris sp Pecopteris sp were reported from the base of the Kayitou Formation dated as Early Induan by marine fauna Recently we discovered numerous representatives of the genus Annalepis in the same Lowermost Triassic beds A latiloba A brevicystis A angusta Annalepis spp occur associated with a basal Triassic marine fauna This discovery fills the biostratigraphic gap between the Late Permian Gigantonoclea guizhouensis Ullmannia cf bronnii Annularia pingloensis and the late Lower Triassi Neuropteridium-Albertia-Voltzia assemblages reported from South China It represents an important datum dealing with the very beginning of a new terrestrial flora installation after the Permian flora disappearance following the Permian-Triassic boundary mass extiction This starting point of a new vegetal cover in South China is to be taken into account in reconstructing through space and time the settlement process of the Mesozoic floristic provinces (C) 2010 Academie des sciences Published by Elsevier Masson SAS All rights reserved