ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For invaluable discussions, comments, and assistance, we thank K. Beard, D. Bice, V. Bittrich, T. Bralower, J. Cantolina, E. Currano, K. Galligan, J. Garcia Massini, H. Hutchison, B. Jacobs, C. Jaramillo, R. Horwitt, A. Iglesias, G. Nesom, A. Pan, L. Pearce, and J. Sessa. We also thank the Board of Trustees and L. Pearce of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew for supplying extant, including type Rhabdophyllum images; S. Wing for access to the USGS Cleared Leaf Collection; G. Harrington and S. Manchester for helpful reviews that greatly improved the paper, and the Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT) for allowing access to research materials. The field trip to Meridian in November 2000 was funded by NSF grant DEB-0073414 to K. Beard; the Penn State Paleobotany Laboratory received major funding from NSF grant EAR-0236489 to PW. Additional support came from a David and Lucile Packard Fellowship and the Ryan Family Foundation (PW). All fluorescence and confocal microscopy was done at the Cytometry Facility, Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, Penn State University, funded in part under a grant with the Pennsylvania Department of Health using Tobacco Settlement Funds. The SEM microscopy was done at the Materials Characterization Laboratory, Penn State University. This paper stems from research in partial fulfillment of a 2006 Senior Thesis in Geobiology at Penn State University by D.R.D; we also thank the Penn State University Department of Geosciences for contributing funds to this undergraduate research.