''Notoscyphus balticus'' is an extinct

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 ...

liverwort The Marchantiophyta () are a division of non-vascular land plants commonly referred to as hepatics or liverworts. Like mosses and hornworts, they have a gametophyte-dominant life cycle, in which cells of the plant carry only a single set of ...

in the

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

Geocalycaceae. The species is solely known from the

Middle Eocene The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''ēṓs'', "da ...

Baltic amber The Baltic region is home to the largest known deposit of amber, called Baltic amber or succinite. It was produced sometime during the Eocene epoch, but exactly when is controversial. It has been estimated that these forests created more than ...

deposits in the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and ...

region of Europe. The genus contains a total of thirteen extant species distributed across the northern hemisphere.

History and classification

''Notoscyphus balticus'' is known from a solitary fossil

gametophyte A gametophyte () is one of the two alternating multicellular phases in the life cycles of plants and algae. It is a haploid multicellular organism that develops from a haploid spore that has one set of chromosomes. The gametophyte is the ...

shoot which is an

inclusion Inclusion or Include may refer to: Sociology * Social inclusion, aims to create an environment that supports equal opportunity for individuals and groups that form a society. ** Inclusion (disability rights), promotion of people with disabiliti ...

in a transparent chunk of Baltic amber. The amber specimen also contains several Fagaceae hairs and some partially decomposed wood bits. When the fossil was described it was part of the amber collections housed in the Geological-Palaeontological Institute and Museum Hamburg. The amber was recovered from fossil bearing rocks in the Baltic Sea region of Europe. Estimates of the age date between 37 million years old, for the youngest sediments and 48 million years old. This age range straddles the middle Eocene, ranging from near the beginning of the Lutetian to the beginning of the Pribonian. The holotype was first studied by a group of five researchers led by Jochen Heinrichs of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. The research group's 2015

type description A species description is a formal description of a newly discovered species, usually in the form of a scientific paper. Its purpose is to give a clear description of a new species of organism and explain how it differs from species that have be ...

for the species was published in the paleobotany journal ''Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology''. The specific epithet ''balticus'' was coined as a reference to the origin location for the amber.

Description

The ''N. balticus'' specimen is a gametophyte shoot preserved from apex down to the

rhizoid Rhizoids are protuberances that extend from the lower epidermal cells of bryophytes and algae. They are similar in structure and function to the root hairs of vascular land plants. Similar structures are formed by some fungi. Rhizoids may be uni ...

s. Overall the gametophyte is long and at its widest. There are three bunches of rhizoids near the base of the shoot and growing to up to long. The rhizoids are unbranched and show a thin coating of fungal hyphae that possibly penetrate into the rhizoids. The leaves are attached to the stem in a succubous manner with the base of each leaf overlapping the leaf below it. The leaves are round in outline when they are small and as the size increases they become elliptic in overall outline. The leaves freely spread out from the stem and some curve upwards, while the underleaves are small to inconspicuous with an ovate to triangular shape.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q20817898 Jungermanniales Prehistoric life of Europe Fossil taxa described in 2014 Flora of Europe Eocene plants Baltic amber