Macrofossil evidence of Late Holocene presence of Aldrovanda vesiculosa L. in Central-Eastern Europe (Poland) and East Africa (Tanzania)

2015

International audience; To date, the seeds of waterwheel plant (Aldrovanda vesiculosa) were only found in Europe, in sediments of the Eemian and Mazovian Interglacials. The absence of A. vesiculosa seeds in European Holocene deposits is probably due to unfavorable climatic conditions, i.e. lower temperature, during this period: in temperate zones, A. vesiculosa reproduces mainly in a vegetative way; it rarely blooms and only occasionally produces seeds. In this paper, subfossil seeds of A. vesiculosa were identified in two peat bogs: one (Sucha Kobyła) in SE Poland and another one (Kyambangunguru) in SW Tanzania. Single seeds of this plant were found in a peat layer from the Polish site for…