Miocene wood from the LaTrobe Valley coal measures, Victoria,. Australia DAVID R. GREENWOOD GREENWOOD, DAVID R., 30.9.2005. Miocene wood from the LaTrobe Valley coal measures, Victoria, Australia. Alcheringa 29, 351-363. ISSN 0311 5518. An initial study of a collection of fossil conifer wood is reported from the late early Miocene Yallourn Clays, an interseam unit intergrading into the base of the early to middle Miocene Yallourn seam of the LaTrobe Valley, Victoria in southeastern Australia. The fossil wood shares characteristics with the modern genera Dacrycarpus and Dacrydium. On the basis of contiguous, uniseriate tracheid pitting and 1-2 podocarpoid cross field pits, it is placed in the form genus Podocarpoxylon, and the new species P. latrobensis. The wood is compared with extant Podocarpaceae and other Australian fossil woods. Its ring anatomy is consistent with low temperature or rainfall seasonality in the early Miocene. David R. Greenwood [
[email protected]], Sustainability Group, Victoria University, St Albans campus, PO Box 14428, Melbourne City MC, VIC 8001, Australia; received 18.7.2003; revised 6.1.2005. Current address; Environmental Science, Brandon University, 270-18th Street, Brandon, MB, Canada, R7A 6A9. Key words: Miocene, wood, Podocarpaceae, coal, LaTrobe Valley, Australia MIOCENE vegetation in Australia is primarily Australia (Taylor et al. 1990), a wood character known from fossil pollen and the macrofossil that is consistent with deciduous forests record of leaves or reproductive organs. Bishop (Greenwood 2001). The paucity of systematic & Bamber (1985), Leisman (1986), and Bamford & analysis of Australian Cenozoic wood is McLoughlin (2000), are the sole recent systematic perplexing given the abundance of material readily accounts of Australian Cenozoic fossil wood, available and the attention given to systematic although early and more recent Australian analysis of modern taxa of Australian forest trees workers noted the presence and quality of (e.g.