Matskási István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 89. (Budapest 1997)

Philippe, M. ; Barbacka, M.: A reappraisal of the Jurassic woods from Hungary

ANNALES HISTORICO-NATURALES MUSEI NATIONALIS HUNGARICI Volume 89. Budapest, 1997 pp. 11-22. A reappraisal of the Jurassic woods from Hungary M. PHILIPPE

1 & M. BARBACKA

2 'University of Lyon-1 and UMR 5565 of CNRS Villeurbanne, France •y 'Department of Botany, Hungarian Natural History Museum H1087 Budapest, Könyves K. krt. 40, Hungary PHILIPPE, M. & BARBACKA, M. (1997): A reappraisal of the Jurassic woods from Hungary. - Annls hist.-nat. Mus. natn. hung. 89: 11-22. Abstract - The three main collections of fossil wood from Hungary (Hungarian Geological Survey [collection in Rákóczi-telep], Department of Botany of the Hungarian Natural History Museum in Budapest and Department of Botany of the József Attila University in Szeged) have been reviewed in search of Jurassic woods. The original slides for 14 of the 21 wood taxa ever described from the Jurassic of Hungary have been found. Xylological analysis highlights a significant synonymy rate. Full systematical and nomenclatural treatment is given. Some taxonomical and paleobiogeographical inferences are then presented. INTRODUCTION The first examination of Jurassic wood was carried out by ANDREÁNSZKY in 1949. On the grounds of wood structure he established the new genus Simplicioxylon and described the new species S. hungaricum from an Upper Liassic locality in the manganese mine of Úrkút. Investigations of the Jurassic stems were continued by GREGUSS who revised Simplicioxylon hungaricum (GREGUSS 1952). His further investigations also concerned Jurassic woods, since he was dealing with woods from Permian to recent (1967, 1969). VADÁSZ, a geologist who payed much attention to fossil woods, presented GREGUSS a lot of samples, and eventually wrote a geological synthesis about fossil woods (VADÁSZ 1963). Under GREGUSS' influence, some of his students followed him for a time in the field of palaeoxylology. However, from among them, only KEDVES published about Jurassic woods (KEDVES 1955, GREGUSS & KEDVES 1961). Since the end of the sixties, the lack of scientific successors of GREGUSS caused complete stagnation. A lot of material has been lost and the great collections of fossil remains and anatomical slides are partly incomplete. At present, the main collections of fossil woods and slides are at the József Attila Scientific University in Szeged (partly GREGUSS' collection); at the Hungarian Geological Survey in Budapest (collection stored in Rákóczi-telep) and at the Botanical Department of the Hungarian Natural History Museum in Budapest (some samples of ANDREÁNSZKY's material). According to museum labels and literature CSEH-