Locality
USGS11480
69.417° -148.627°
Sagavanirktok (B-3) Quad.
Sagwon section along the western side of the Sagavanirktok River. A clay ironstone approximately 35 m stratigraphically below locality 11479 contained abundant angiosperm, fern, and conifer remains.
Description
Leafy shoot: Leaves apparently distichous, opposite to subopposite inclned at an acute angle to the shoot axis, linear lanceolate to narrow elliptical; apices rounded or bluntly acute with a fine minute mucro; base rounded to obtuse with a small footstalk or petiole, obliquely inserted on the shoot with respect to the plane of the foliage; a single dark median line runs the length of the leaf.
Remarks
All of the shoots of this general type found at this locality have oppositely arranged leaves. There is not a single occurrence of alternate insertion even among the specimens which represent shoots of different sizes. It is unlikely therefore that they represent Parataxodium. Rather they possess features of Metasequoia. the associated seed cones (specimens 11488.7, USGS 11488.12) are the same as those associated with Parataxodium, but then the cones described by Arnold and Lowther (1955) are distinctly like those of Metasequoia. The foliage described here is identical to that described by Chaney (1951) as Metasequoia occidentalis.