First occurrence of Camptotheca fruits from late Miocene of southwestern China

ABSTRACT

Camptotheca Decaisne, an endemic genus with three species confined in central and southern China, is medically important for its anticancer effects. Fossil records indicate extinct genera Amersinia Manchester, Crane & Golovneva and Browniea Manchester et Hickey represented Palaeogene members of the Nyssaceae family resembling extant Camptotheca Decaisne. However, no fossil record of Camptotheca is reported until now. Here we present the first fossil of Camptotheca based on infructescences and fruits from the late Miocene of southwestern China, which is within its modern indigenous region. The fossils represented by drupaceous fruits with distinctive characters conform to Camptotheca and are distinguishable from the previous extinct genera Amersinia and Browniea, and extant genera Davidia and Nyssa of the family Nyssaceae s.s. This finding represents the first occurrence of the extant genus Camptotheca and deepens the fossil history of ‘happy trees’ back to late Miocene. It demonstrates by late Miocene, Camptotheca had inhabited in the current endemic region where it has survived to the present day.

KEYWORDS:

• Biogeography
• Camptotheca
• Miocene
• Nyssaceae
• Yunnan

Acknowledgments

We thank Prof. Steven R. Manchester from the University of Florida for his helpful suggestions. The helpful comments and constructive suggestions of the two anonymous reviewers greatly improved this manuscript. We are also thankful to the editor for handling the submission of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [41972008 and 31870200]; the Strategic Priority Research Program (B) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences [XDB26000000]; the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research Program (STEP) [2019QZKK0704]; the Foundation of the State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, CAS [173126] and China Scholarship Council (CSC).