A new Bennettitalean trunk with unilacunar five-trace nodal structure from the Upper Cretaceous of Hokkaido, Japan

A new species of Bucklandia is described based on a permineralized fossil trunk that was obtained from sediments of Upper Cretaceous age from Hokkaido, Japan. The quality of preservation is exquisite, and anatomical and morphological features are preserved at the cellular level. The specimen is clearly bennettitalean because of the cycadeoidean-type arrangement of vascular bundles in the petiole. However, this specimen is unique among previously described progymnosperms and gymnosperms in possessing a unilacunar five-trace type of nodal structure. The fossil thus contributes to a more complete understanding of the variation of nodal structure in bt bennttitalean trunks.