This is Mazon Monday post #114. What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:[email protected].
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Codonotheca caduca was named by Elias Howard Sellards (1875 - 1961). He was a paleontologist, geologist, and anthropologist. The Texas State Historical Association has a nice summary of his career, which spanned almost 60 years.
SELLARDS, ELIAS HOWARD (1875–1961).Elias Howard Sellards, geologist and paleontologist, was born in Carter City, Kentucky, on May 2, 1875, the son of Wiley W. and Sarah (Menach) Sellards. The family moved to Kansas during Elias's youth. He attended the University of Kansas, where he received his B.A. and M.A. degrees, and Yale University, from which he graduated in 1903 with a doctoral degree in paleontology. During his years as a graduate student in Kansas he discovered about 6,000 specimens of Permian insects, among the richest finds of its kind. After completing his doctorate he worked briefly at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh and taught at Rutgers University for one year. In 1904 he was appointed professor of geology and zoology at the University of Florida. From 1907 to 1918 he served as state geologist of Florida, and in 1908 he attended the first Conference for the Preservation of Natural Resources in Washington, presided over by President Theodore Roosevelt. In 1918 Sellards moved to Austin, Texas, where he worked in the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas. He was commissioned by the Texas attorney general's office to research the history of the Red River and testify in a boundary dispute with Oklahoma (see BOUNDARIES). His evidence gained a settlement favorable to Texas. During his forty-three years in Texas, Sellards also made numerous significant finds, including early sculpture in East Texas, estimated to be 25,000 years old; Pleistocene deposits in Bee County containing the fossilized remains of elephants, camels, giant wolves, and three-toed horses; a twenty-five-foot sea lizard near the Gulf Coast; and brontosaurus tracks. Sellards was the author of numerous works, including Pliocene and Pleistocene (1906), The Geology of Texas (1933), and Early Man in America (1952), and was widely honored in his profession. He served a president of the Society of Economic Paleontologists and Mineralogists in 1938 and the Paleontological Society in 1942. He was assistant director of the Bureau of Economic Geology from 1925 to 1932 and director from 1932 to 1945. He was a longtime member of the Philosophical Society of Texas. Sellards married Anna Mary Alford on September 4, 1907. The couple had two daughters. He died in Austin on February 11, 1961.
C. caduca is believed to be the pollen organ of Macroneuopteris scheuchzerii. It is considered rare and is only known from the Mazon Creek fossil biota, especially with deposits which are rich in M. scheuchzerii like the Mazon River locality.
The addition of the pollen organs and fertile forms is just one of the improvements Jack Wittry made in "A Comprehensive Guide to the Fossil Flora of Mazon Creek" over his previous plant book. Finding information on these obscure plant parts tends to be fairly troublesome. C. cadica appears on page 237.
1903. Codonotheca caduca Sellards: pls. 1-3, fig. 3A
1907. Codonotheca caduca Sellards: fig. 7
1925. Codonotheca caduca Sellards; Noé: pl. 43, figs. 1-3
1958. Codonotheca caduca Sellards; Langford: p. 303, figs. 566, 567
1969. Codonotheca caduca Sellards; Darrah: p. 163, pl. 17, figs. 1-4
1994. Codonotheca caduca Sellards; Drinnan and Crane: p. 236, pls. 1-3DESCRIPTION: These are elongated and stalked pollen organs that are often borne in pairs. They consist of a swollen, bell-shaped, sterile portion near the stalk, from which hang six elongated and parallel-sided segments for 70 to 80 percent of the organ's length. Each segment contains a single sporangial cavity. The organs are variable in size, and most range from 30 mm to 50 mm in length. The surface of the pollen organ is often covered with dense hairs.
REMARKS: Codonotheca caduca is rare and known only from the Carbondale Formation of Illinois, most notably the Mazon Creek area, where it is the most common pollen organ found. Both Sellards and Darrah (from cuticular and stomata evidence, Darrah, 1937) believed this was likely the pollen organ of Macroneuropteris scheuchzerii, but no organic attachment has been found to date.
Specimens
From the Field Museum
Mazon River from ESCONI member Rhonda Gates
Mazon River from ESCONI member Marie Angkuw
Mazon River from ESCONI member Andrew Young
