EOCENE PLANT FOSSILS FROM THE LEFROY AND COWAN PALEODRAINAGES, WESTERN-AUSTRALIA

Forty-two dispersed cuticle taxa are described from late Middle Eocene drill core samples in the Lefroy and Cowan paleodrainages (Kambalda-N orseman region), Western Australia. They are preserved in fluvial-marg inal marine sediments of the Pidinga and Werillup Formations. Thirty-f our distinct cuticle taxa occur in the richest sample including Cupres saceae, Araucariaceae (Agathis), Podocarpaceae (Dacrycarpus, Acmopyle, Dacrydium), Cunoniaceae, Lauraceae, Myrtaceae, Casuarinaceae (Gymnost oma), Nothofagus subgenus Lophozonia and tribes Embothrieae, Macadamie ae and Banksieae of the Proteaceae. The presence of at least 12 taxa o f Proteaceae provides further support for palynological evidence of a rich proteaceous component in Eocene Western Australian assemblages.