Valviloculus pleristaminis, flower in lateral view. Image credit: Poinar, Jr. et al., doi: 10.17348/jbrit.v14.i2.1014.
SciNews has a story about a flower preserved in amber. The fossil flower is called Valviloculus pleristaminis. It lived about 99 miliion years ago during the Cretaceous Period in what is now Myanmar. Myanmar has amber deposits that have yielded some amazing finds, including dinosaur tails, feathers, wings, and even a skull. The discovery is described in a paper in the Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas.
The new fossil flower, named Valviloculus pleristaminis, belongs to the order Laurales, its closest affinities being with the families Monimiaceae and Atherospermataceae.
“This isn’t quite a Christmas flower but it is a beauty, especially considering it was part of a forest that existed almost 100 million years ago,” said lead author Professor George Poinar Jr., a paleontologist in the Department of Integrative Biology at Oregon State University.
“The male flower is tiny, about 2 mm across, but it has some 50 stamens arranged like a spiral, with anthers pointing toward the sky.”
“A stamen consists of an anther (pollen-producing head) and a filament (stalk that connects the anther to the flower).”
“Despite being so small, the detail still remaining is amazing.”
“Our specimen was probably part of a cluster on the plant that contained many similar flowers, some possibly female.”
