Klavins S D., Taylor E L., Krings M, Taylor T N.
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and the Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center, University of Kansas, 66045, Lawrence, KS, USA
Rev Palaeobot Palynol. 2001 Jun;115(3-4):107-117. doi: 10.1016/s0034-6667(01)00052-5.
Anatomically preserved ovules are described from silicified peat of Late Permian age collected from Skaar Ridge in the central Transantarctic Mountains, Antarctica. The small ovules are significant in possessing fleshy apical appendages and a funnel-shaped micropylar extension formed by the sarcotestal layer of the integument, by which they differ from all other Permian ovules described to date. The apical modifications may have functioned in pollination and/or seed dispersal. Similarity with the apical organization of earlier Paleozoic ovules is shown to be superficial, since the analogous structures are developmentally derived from different tissues. Although the ovules occur in rocks in which glossopterids are the only gymnosperms represented, there is insufficient evidence to assign them to a taxonomic group. These ovules are of particular importance because there are so few anatomically preserved gymnosperm reproductive structures known from the Permian and thus provide new data on the diversity of late Paleozoic gymnosperms.
从南极洲横贯南极山脉中部斯卡尔岭采集的晚二叠世硅化泥炭中，发现了解剖结构保存完好的胚珠。这些小胚珠的显著特征是具有肉质顶端附属物，以及由珠被的肉质外层形成的漏斗状珠孔延伸，这使其与迄今描述的所有其他二叠纪胚珠不同。顶端的这些形态变化可能在授粉和/或种子传播中发挥了作用。与早古生代胚珠顶端结构的相似性被证明只是表面的，因为类似结构在发育上源自不同组织。尽管这些胚珠所在的岩石中，舌羊齿类是唯一代表的裸子植物，但没有足够的证据将它们归入某一分类群。这些胚珠尤为重要，因为已知的二叠纪解剖结构保存完好的裸子植物生殖结构极少，因此它们为晚古生代裸子植物的多样性提供了新的数据。
