Tsukada davidiifolia
| Tsukada davidiifolia | |
|---|---|
 |
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| T. davidiifolia fossil leaf | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Eudicots |
| Clade: | Asterids |
| Order: | Cornales |
| Family: | Nyssaceae |
| Genus: |
†Tsukada Wolfe & Wehr |
| Species: | †T. davidiifolia |
| Binomial name | |
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Tsukada davidiifolia Wolfe & Wehr |
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Tsukada is an extinct genus of flowering plant in the family Nyssaceae related to the modern "dove-tree", Davidia involucrata, containing the single species Tsukada davidiifolia. The genus is known from fossil leaves found in the early Eocene deposits of northern Washington state, United States and a similar aged formation in British Columbia, Canada.
Tsukada leaf fossils have been identified from two locations in Western North America, the 49 million year old Klondike Mountain Formation near Republic, Washington and at the One Mile Creek locality near Princeton, British Columbia. Fossil pollen identified as from the Nyssaceae genus Nyssa has been identified from the related Okanagan Highlands Hat Creek Amber in central British Columbia.
Ages for the Okanagan Highland locations are, in general, Early Eocene, with the sites that have current uranium-lead or argon–argon radiometric dates being of Ypresian age, while the undated sites or those given older dates being possibly slightly younger and Lutetian in age.
Tsukada was described from a group of type specimen leaves, the holotype UW 71095, along with two paratypes UW 39187 and UW 71081 were part of the paleobotanical collections of Burke Museum. Additionally the counterpart to specimen UW 39187 was preserved in the University of California Museum of Paleontology collection as UCMP 9302. Working from these specimens, collected in the Republic, Washington area in the early 1980s, the fossils were studied by Jack A. Wolfe of the University of California and Wesley C. Wehr of the Burke Museum. They published their 1987 type description for the genus and species in a United States Geological Survey monograph on the North Eastern Washington dicot fossils.
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