ELSEVIER Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 143 (1998) 135–158 Middle Bathonian floras and phytocoenoses of France Marc Philippe a,Ł , Fre ´de ´ric Thevenard a , Georges Barale a , Serge Ferry b , Gae ¨tan Guignard c a Laboratoire de Pale ´obotanique de l’Universite ´ Lyon-1 et UMR 5565 du CNRS, Ba ˆtiment 401 A, 43 Bd. du 11 Novembre 1918, F69622 Villeurbanne cedex, France b Laboratoire de Ge ´ologie de l’Universite ´ Lyon-1 et UMR 5565 du CNRS, Ba ˆtiment 402, 43 Bd. du 11 Novembre 1918, F69622 Villeurbanne cedex, France c Laboratoire de Pale ´obotanique de l’Universite ´ Lyon-1, Ba ˆtiment 401 A, 43 Bd. du 11 Novembre 1918, F69622 Villeurbanne cedex, France Received 11 September 1997; accepted 2 April 1998 Abstract In the Causses Basin (SE France), a continental lignitic deposit yields a diverse middle Bathonian megaflora, until now almost unstudied. The floristic data include megafloras, palynology and data from woods and leafy shoots. The palaeoecology of this flora is quite unique, representing backswamps, fens, and freshwater ponds in a carbonate domain. There is little evidence of vegetation from brackish environments. Elsewhere in France, contemporaneous floras are known, with different ecologies. These include a flora of low undulating tracts on shell sand in Normandy and a mangal assemblage in Franche-Comte ´. New palaeobotanical and palynological data are given for both floras. The floristic composition of the three floras is compared and discussed together with additional coeval data. This set of floras is of interest as they grew mainly on calcareous soils, whereas most Middle Jurassic floristic associations described previously were mainly from siliciclastic environments. Because of their contemporaneous nature, asserted with an accuracy rarely reached for continental biota, these floras can be used to estimate the climatic gradient of the middle Bathonian.  1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: France; Bathonian; Jurassic; palaeobotany; palaeoclimatology 1. Introduction In the middle Bathonian of France, terrestrial plant remains are relatively common, sometimes found in their original growth-sites (Parent, 1944). From a pre- vious investigation of this stage in the Causses Basin, we discovered that the flora is indicative of freshwa- ter environments in a carbonate area (The ´venard et al., 1993). It is a depositional setting that is different Ł Corresponding author. Fax: 33 04 7244 8203; E-mail: philippe@univ-lyon1.fr from most of those described up to now for the Middle Jurassic of Western Europe. To document the palaeoe- cology of this level, we now review a large but scat- tered set of literature, revise previously described ma- terial, and add new field data from various localities in France. Despite being much less well documented than the contemporaneous siliciclastic assemblages from England, it appears that these middle Batho- nian floras represent poorly known, although widely distributed, phytocoenoses, established on carbonate sand and mud. These assemblages include mangal, freshwater ponds, and dunes. 0031-0182/98/$ – see front matter  1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII S0031-0182(98)00075-3