Morphology and palynostratigraphy of the genusCamerosporitesLeschik 1956

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Abstract
The genus Camerosporites Leschik 1956 is here emended and the seven species attributed to it are reduced to four. Assemblages of Camerosporites isolated from Upper Triassic strata from sites in the eastern U.S. (the Newark, Culpeper, Richmond, Taylorsville, and Danville basins) and the western U.S. (Chinle Formation) consistently segregate into three recognizable species: C. secatus, C. verrucosus, and C. pseudoverrucatus. Of these, C. secatus and C. verrucosus are more common and more easily recognized. Examination of the morphologic characteristics and regional stratigraphic occurrence of these taxa demonstrates that they can be differentiated by light and electron microscopy, that the enigmatic host plant probably was either a primitive pteridophyte or a primitive gymnosperm, and that C. secatus and C. verrucosus are biostratigraphically useful for differentiating Carnian and Norian (Upper Triassic) continental deposits, especially within the eastern Mesozoic basins. The status of the only reported Jurassic species, C. reductiverrucatus, remains problematic.