Authors : Lina S. Konde
Page Nos : 166-169
Description :
The paper describes a multilocular capsular fruit collected from the inter-trappean beds of Mohgaon kalan. The fruit is dicotyledonous, multilocular, multiseeded with axile placentation. Pericarp differentiated into epicarp, mesocarp and endocarp. Epicarp with epidermis followed by thin parenchymatous cells. Mesocarp with air cavities and parenchymatous cells. Endocarp having thick walled parenchymatous cells without intercellular spaces. It is multilocular and multiseeded with single seed in each locule with axile placentation. The fossil is compared with the living families Malvaceae, Pittosporaceae, Ochnaceae, Melastomaceae, Begoniaceae, Companulaceae and Lythraceae and also with already described fossil multilocular fruits Indocarpa intertrappea (Jain, 1964), Harrisocarpon sahnii (Chitaley and Nambudari, 1973), Sahniocarpon harrissi(Chitaley and Patil, 1973), Daberocarpon gerhardii (Chitaley and Sheikh, 1971), Deccanocarpon arnoldii (Paradkar, 1975), Wingospermocarpon mohgaonse (Sheikh and Kapgate, 1984), Triloculocarpon mahabalei (Kapgate, 1982), Burseraceocarpon ramanujami (Adhao, 1986) Gardoniocarpon mohgaonse and Nicardocarpon ramanujami (Chudiwale, 1990) and Enigmocarpon parijaii (Sahni, 1943). It is evident from the study that the fossil fruit is referable to family Lythraceae but does not correlate with any of the living and fossil genus described earlier in toto. Therefore, it is placed under new form genus Rodeocarpon mohgaonse gen.et.sp.nov. the generic name being after the well known Geologist late Prof. K. P. Rode and specific name is after the locality Mohgaon kalan.
