Lepacyclotes kirchneri n.sp. (Isoetales, Isoetaceae) aus dem unteren Jura von Oberfranken

The Late Triassic and Early Jurassic (also known as „Rhaeto-Liassic“) macroflora from Upper Franconia, Germany, is diverse. However, lycophytes have not been documented to date. This is surprising since lycophytes have been reported from several of the contemporaneous floras elsewhere in Europe. This paper describes Lepacyclotes kirchneri n. sp., a small, spatulate isoetalean (quillwort) sporophyll from the Lower Jurassic of Pechgraben near the city of Bayreuth and Höferänger near Kulmbach. The new species differs from the other European members in Lepacyclotes (i.e. L. bechstaedtii and L. zeilleri) by the presence of a prominent elongate-triangular or linear apical process. Lepacyclotes kirchneri represents the first record of the genus Lepacyclotes from the Jurassic worldwide, and thus indicates that this taxon, which heretofore was exclusively known from the Triassic, survived the end-Triassic mass extinction.