''Cunninghamites elegans'' is an extinct conifer

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

in the family Cupressaceae and the

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

'' Cunninghamites''. ''Cunninghamites'' is a genus of the European

Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', ...

flora.Taxodiaceous conifers from the Maastrichtian type area (Late Cretaceous, NE Belgium, SE Netherlands). R. W. J. M. van der Ham, J. H. A. van Konijnenburg-van Cittert and J. van der Burgh, Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, Volume 116, Issues 3-4, Sept 2001, pp. 233-250, Remains of ''C. elegans'' needles have been found in carcasses of the dinosaur '' Edmontosaurus''.

References

External links

''Cunninghamites elegans'' collections.si.edu

The Upper Cretaceous and Eocene floras of South Carolina and Georgia, Numéros 84 à 85, Edward Wilber Berry, Govt. Print Office, 1914
Cupressaceae Plants described in 1847 Fossil taxa described in 1847 Late Cretaceous plants {{cretaceous-plant-stub