A FOSSIL SEED FROM THE MAASTRICHTIAN-DANIAN DECCAN INTERTRAPPEAN SEQUENCES OF MARAI PATAN, MAHARASHTRA, INDIA

A dicotyledonous fossil seed has been described from the newly explored locality Marai Patan of Vidarbha region of Maharashtra state, central India. The fossil seed is solidly silicified within the chert was recovered by breaking pieces of chert. From the reconstruction based on a slide by slide observation, it had been concluded that the petrified structures under consideration was a small sized ovate. Seed is orthotropous, dicotyledonous, unitegmic. Testa is undifferentiated, tegmen is single layered, sclerenchymatous compactly arranged, nuclear endosperm. Embryo is thin walled parenchymatous, embryo length is less than ¾ of the seed length and width is about ¼ of seed width. For assigning the fossil seed to proper family, it is compared with living genera of modern dicot families. The present report of a new seed of Piperaceae from newly explored locality Marai Patan is a noteworthy contribution to our 
knowledge of fossil seed.

Keyword: Fossil seed, Deccan Intertrappean, Piperaceae, Dicotyledonous, Maastrichtian-annian etc.