Fossil Record 15(2): 85-89, doi: 10.1002/mmng.201200006
Pre-Cretaceous Agaricomycetes yet to be discovered: Reinvestigation of a putative Triassic bracket fungus from southern Germany
expand article infoA. P. Kiecksee‡, L. J. Seyfullah‡, H. Dörfelt§, J. Heinrichs|, H. Süß, A. R. Schmidt‡
‡ Courant Research Centre Geobiology, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Goldschmidtstraße 3, 37077 Göttingen, Germany§ Mikrobielle Phytopathologie, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Neugasse 25, 07743 Jena, Germany| Albrecht-von-Haller-Institut für Pflanzenwissenschaften, Abteilung Systematische Botanik, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Untere Karspüle 2, 37073 Göttingen, Germany¶ Museum für Naturkunde, Institut für Paläontologie, Invalidenstr. 43, 10115 Berlin, Germany
© A. P. Kiecksee, L. J. Seyfullah, H. Dörfelt, J. Heinrichs, H. Süß, A. R. Schmidt.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation: Kiecksee AP, Seyfullah LJ, Dörfelt H, Heinrichs J, Süß H, Schmidt AR (2012) Pre-Cretaceous Agaricomycetes yet to be discovered: Reinvestigation of a putative Triassic bracket fungus from southern Germany. Fossil Record 15(2): 85-89. https://doi.org/10.1002/mmng.201200006
Open Access
Abstract
Agaricomycetes are major components of extant terrestrial ecosystems; however, their fruiting bodies are exceedingly rare as fossils. Reinvestigation of a peculiar fossil from Late Triassic sediments of southern Germany interpreted as a bracket fungus revealed that this fossil in fact represents a wood abnormality, resulting from injury to the cambium and subsequent callus growth in a Baieroxylon -like ginkgoalean wood. As a result, the fossil record of the Agaricomycetes does not yet pre-date the Early Cretaceous, suggesting a late diversification of basidiomycetes possessing large fruiting bodies.

doi:10.1002/mmng.201200006