Planera

Planera is a genus of flowering plants with a single living species, Planera aquatica, the planertree or water elm. The genus has an extensive fossil record dating back to the Cretaceous and spanning the northern hemisphere, with a few southern hemisphere records as well. The living species is found in the southeastern United States, it is a small deciduous tree 10–15 m (390–590 in) tall, closely related to the elms but with a softly, prickly nut 10–15 mm (0.39–0.59 in) diameter, instead of a winged seed. It grows, as the name suggests, on wet sites. Despite its common English name, this species is not a true elm, although it is a close relative of the elms. It is also subject to Dutch elm disease, a disease which affects only members of the Ulmaceae. It is native to most of the southeast United States. It is hardy down to Zone 7.

Planera

François André Michaux (book author), Augustus Lucas Hillhouse (translator), Henri-Joseph Redouté (illustrator), Gabr… · Public Domain · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
water elmPBDB
Sits inside
UlmaceaePBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Angiospermae

Time the record covers

At least 42 million years on record.

The record covers at least 56 Mya to 13.82 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 66 Mya to 11.63 Mya.

Late Cretaceous — about 0 of 5 occurrencesPaleocene — about 1 of 5 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 3 of 5 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 5 occurrencesMiocene — about 1 of 5 occurrencesMiocene67–65 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences65–63 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences63–61 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences61–60 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences60–58 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences58–56 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences56–54 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences54–52 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences52–50 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences50–48 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences48–46 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences46–44 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences44–43 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences43–41 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences41–39 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences39–37 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences37–35 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences35–33 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences14–12 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences56 Mya13.82 Mya67 Mya11 Mya

5 occurrences of Planera on record, most of them in the Eocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

5 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

3 formations

Choptank — 38.16°N, 76.83°WPiney Point — 37.67°N, 77.14°WJackson — 36.42°N, 89.56°W

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The named rock units Planera has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Planera and its relatives

Eocene

Where Planera and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

132 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Planera, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

5 references

Each of the 5 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Planera

Credit
François André Michaux (book author), Augustus Lucas Hillhouse (translator), Henri-Joseph Redouté (illustrator), Gabr…
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itUlmaceae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gmelin 1791