New perspectives on the Mesozoic seed fern order Corystospermales based onattached organs from the triassic of Antarctica

A new Triassic corystosperm is described from the Shackleton Glacier region of Antarctica. The compression fossils include cupulate organs (Umkomasia uniramia) and leaves (Dicroidium odontopteroides) attached to short shoot-b earing branches. The cupulate organs occur in groups near the apices of the short shoots, and each consists of a single axis with a pair of bracts and a subapical whorl of five to eight ovoid cupules. This unique architecture indicates that the cupules are individual megasporophylls rather than leaf lets of a compound megasporophyll. A branch bearing an attached D. odontopt eroides leaf provides the first unequivocal evidence that Umkomasia cupulat e organs and Dicroidium leaves were produced by the same plants. Although t his had previously been assumed based on organ associations, the new specim ens are important in demonstrating that a single species of corystosperm pr oduced the unique cupulate organs described here and the geographically and stratigraphically widespread and common D. odontopteroides leaf. Therefore , biostratigraphic, paleoecological, and phylogenetic studies that treat Di croidium leaf morphospecies as proxies for biological species of entire pla nts should be reconsidered. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that the corysto sperm cupule is an unlikely homologue for the angiosperm carpel or outer in tegument.