Pleistocene Plant Fossils of the Lower Karewa Beds of Kashmir
Pleistocene Plant Fossils of the Lower Karewa Beds of Kashmir
Relph R. Stewart
ABSTRACT
I had no intention of adding another botanical field of interest when about 1933 Dr. Helmut de Terra, then at Yale, came to Rawalpindi to collect stone age artifacts from the Soan River terraces near Morgah and to collect fossil bones from the Salt Range. He invited me to go to an area near Gulmarg, Kashmir on the north slope of the Pir Panjal Range where he had learned that there were fossil leaves in the clay of an ancient lake or lakes near a place called Laredura at c. 1875 m. and Dangarpur c. 2031 m. of altitude. I had never collected plant fossils and was glad to be able to go with him. Most of the fossils were the leaves of forest trees which had blown on to the surface of the lake or had floated down from higher levels. They had sunk to the bottom and there were many layers of leaves in the clay along with Trapa fruits and a few seeds. Many of the leaves were of oaks, maples, birch and willows which seemed to be similar to modem species and some I could not identify. The most interesting seemed to be a Ginkgo or a fem leaflet resembling it. I named the specimens as far as I could, without a great deal of microscopic work, and gave a list to Dr. de Terra which he published in 1939 in De Terra, H. and Patterson, T.T., Studies on the Ice Age in India and Associated Human Cultures. Carnegie Inst., Washington, D.C.
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March 1981
Vol. 31, Iss. 1
