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Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 144 (2007) 39 – 76 /locate/revpalbo New records of Early Cretaceous angiosperm pollen from Portuguese coastal deposits: Implications for the timing of the early angiosperm radiation Ulrich Heimhofer a,⁎, Peter A. Hochuli b,1 , Stefan Burla a,2 , Helmut Weissert a,3 a Geological Institute, ETH Zürich, Sonneggstr. 5, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland b Palaeontological Institute, University of Zürich, Karl Schmid-Strasse 4, 8006 Zürich, Switzerland Received 30 August 2004; received in revised form 31 May 2005; accepted 21 September 2005 Available online 28 August 2006 Abstract Detailed and continuous palynological records from two well-dated successions in the Portuguese Algarve and Lusitanian Basins document the diversification of early angiosperm pollen during the Late Barremian to Middle Albian time interval. Based on dinoflagellate cyst biostratigraphy, an accurate stratigraphic framework has been established for the studied near-shore deposits resulting in distinct changes of the stratigraphic position of individual units. The qualitative and quantitative analysis of the palynofloras of the two sections revealed a total of 66 different types of angiosperm pollen. Most of them (55 taxa) are monoaperturate grains of magnoliid or monocot affinity. In both records, eudicots, represented by various tri- and polyaperturate taxa (11 taxa), are restricted to the Albian part of the sections. Angiosperm pollen grains display a distinct increase in both, diversity and relative abundance between the Late Barremian and the Mi