Taxonomic revision of tricolpate pollen from Indian Tertiary

Abstract

Tricolpate pollen have been described under 32 genera and 98 species from the Tertiary sediments of India. Some of these genera are either nomenclaturally illegitimate or invalid but still are being used by different palynologists. Moreover, circumscription and the diagnoses of some genera/species are overlapping each other and thus they need a thorough taxonomic revision to make them more useful in stratigraphy. With this objective, holotypes and related specimens of the tricolpate pollen taxa housed at Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany Museum have been restudied and in part photodocumented. Character assessment and reallocation of the remaining taxa have been done on the basis of available literature and illustrations. Each taxon has been evaluated and demarcation of morphological limits have been attempted to make them more useful and applicable for stratigraphy and age correlation. In addition, the distribution of different species has been recorded to know their stratigraphic range.