Evidence for Gondwanan origins for sassafras (Lauraceae)? Late Cretaceous fossil wood of Antarctica

Sassafrasoxylon gottwaldii sp. nov. is a new taxon for fossil wood with a s uite of features diagnostic of Sassafras Nees & Eberm. of the Lauraceae. Th e fossil wood described is from Late Cretaceous (Santonian-Maastrichlian) s ediments of the northern Antarctica Peninsula region. This new species of S assafrasoxylon Brezinova et Suss resembles the species of extant Sassafras in being distinctly ring-porous, having vessel elements with simple perfora tion plates and very occasional scalariform plates with relatively few bars in the narrowest latewood vessels, alternate intervascular pitting, margin al (initial) parenchyma bands and paratracheal vasicentric parenchyma in th e latewood, multiseriate rays and oil and/or mucilage cells. The fossils we re found as isolated pieces of wood and therefore it is not certain whether the parent plant was Sassafras-like in all characters. Consequently the fo ssils have been placed in an organ genus rather than in extant Sassafras. T his is the oldest record of an organ with features closest to extant Sassaf ras and may suggest that Sassafras first appeared in Gondwana and later rad iated into the Northern Hemisphere. The distribution of extant Sassafras in North America and East Asia may represent a relict of a geographically mor e widespread taxon in the past.