Cenozoic and Mesozoic Bryophytes of North America
Cenozoic and Mesozoic Bryophytes of North America
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DOI：
10.2307/2421507
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发表时间：
1946-09
影响因子：
0.6
通讯作者：
W. Steere
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
W. Steere
那些研究化石苔藓和肝化石的人所面临的最大的分类学问题是一个自相矛盾的问题--它们不是被归为形式属，而是被以一种误导性的精确性和正确性“鉴定”。造成这种反常情况的原因不难找到。第一，化石是如此罕见，以至于它们被逐一描述，通常与活的属进行比较，而没有太多参考早期的描述。其次，许多标本是由非苔藓植物学家描述的，他们自然不知道苔藓植物的现代系统趋势。此外，大多数的化石都是以当地的植物群命名的，辨认化石的人在选择名称时，会有意识或无意识地受到化石所在地区的物种的影响。然而，正如钱尼和许多其他人所指出的，在新生代，植物群的分布发生了很大的变化，为了正确地识别第三纪的许多化石，我们必须熟悉热带属和温带属。
The greatest taxonomic problem confronting those who study fossil mosses and hepatics is a paradoxical one-instead of being lumped into form-genera, they have been "identified" with a misleading precision and exactitude. Tlle reasons for this anomalous situation are not hard to find. In the first place, fossil bryophytes are so very rare that they have been described one by one, usually in comparison with living genera, without much reference to earlier descriptions. In the second place, many specimens have been described by nonbryologists who are naturally unaware of modern systematic trends in bryophytes. Furthermore, most of the bryophyte fossils have been named on a local flora basis-the person identifying them has been influenced consciously or unconsciously by the species now inhabiting the region from which the fossil came, in choosing a name. However, as Chaney and many others have shown, there has been a great change in the distribution of floras during Cenozoic times, and one must be familiar with tropical genera as well as temperate ones in order to identify correctly many fossils of Tertiary age.