The Jurassic flora of Sardinia – A new piece in the palaeobiogeographic puzzle of the Middle Jurassic

The Middle Jurassic flora of Sardinia has been studied, and 24 taxa (19 genera) belonging to horsetails, ferns (Phlebopteris, Hausmannia, Coniopteris, Todites, Cladophlebis), seed ferns (Sagenopteris, Ptilozamites), cycadophytes (Nilssonia, Pterophyllum, Cycadeospermum, Ptilophyllum, Williamsonia, Weltrichia, Taeniopteris), ginkgophytes (Czekanowskia), conifers (Geinitzia, Brachyphyllum, Elatocladus) and seeds (Carpolithes), have been identified. The flora of Sardinia is the southernmost of all Middle Jurassic European floras. The coeval European and North African floral assemblages (112 genera) are present in a wide variety of environments and different palaeogeographic positions, which is reflected in a wide variety of taxa. A comparison between the coeval floras of Middle Jurassic age reveals a higher degree of dissimilarity than similarity between the various assemblages, which is in disagreement with the general picture of the homogeneity in the Jurassic floras given by previous authors.