A rare flower finally arrives in time in the sun, almost 100 million years after flowering.
Researchers at Oregon State University have identified a new species of angiosperm, or flowering plant, from the Cretaceous period that was preserved in an amber fragment found in present-day Myanmar.
Nicknamed Valviloculus pleristaminis, it belongs to the laurel family and is related to the black-hearted sassafras found in Australia.
Myanmar and Australia are divided by more than 4,000 kilometers of ocean, but at the time this flower was wrapped in resin, they were part of a supercontinent known as Gondwanaland.
The discovery of V. pleristaminis suggests that the continental plate was separated from Gondwanaland much later than previously theorized.
Scroll down to see the video
OSU researchers discovered Valviloculus pleristaminis, a new species and genus, trapped in amber 100 million years ago. The tiny male flower has dozens of stamens arranged in a spiral with pollen-producing heads pointing towards the sky.
“This isn’t a Christmas flower, but it’s a beauty, especially considering it was part of a forest that existed almost 100 million years ago,” said George Poinar Jr., a paleontologist in the Department of Integrative Biology. of the OSU.
“The male flower is small, about 2 millimeters in diameter, but has about 50 stamens arranged like a spiral and the anthers point towards the sky.”
The stamen is the part of the male flower that produces pollen, while the anther is the pollen-producing head of the stamen.
“Despite being so small, the detail that still remains is incredible,” said Poinar, author of a report on the discovery in the Texas Journal of the Botanical Research Institute.
The flower bloomed in the ancient supercontinent Gondwanaland and was embedded in amber, Poinar theorizes, before launching into a continental plate known as the West Burma block, as it slowly moved 4,000 miles away. distance.
OSU paleontologist George Poinar Jr. holds a piece of amber. The work of the world-renowned expert in the analysis of plants and animals found in prehistoric substance inspired Michael Crichton to write Jurassic Park.
He and colleagues at OSU and the Department of Agriculture named the flower (which is both a genus and a new species), Valviloculus pleristaminis.
Valve is the Latin term meaning the leaf of a folding door, loculus means “compartment”, plerus refers to “many” and staminis reflects the dozens of male sexual organs of the flower.
Poinar added that the specimen was part of a cluster of a plant with similar flowers, “possibly some women.”
In addition to its beauty, the fossilized flower stands out for the journey it made: it bloomed in the ancient supercontinent Gondwanaland and was wrapped in amber before launching into a continental plate known as the West Burma block.
That plate slowly moved from Australia to Southeast Asia, a journey of 4,000 miles.
There is ongoing debate about when the West Burma bloc broke away from Gondwanaland, which eventually split into Africa, South America, Australia, Antarctica, the Indian subcontinent and the Arabian Peninsula.
Some geologists have set the date at 500 million years ago, while others theorize that it was closer to 200 million years ago.
But, according to Poinar, angiosperms only evolved and diversified about 100 million years ago.
This means that the West Burma bloc could not have been broken before, he said, “which is much later than the dates that have been suggested.”
Poinar is a world-renowned expert in the analysis of plants and animals found in amber; his work inspired Michael Crichton to write Jurassic Park.
In 2013, Poinar discovered a piece of amber with the oldest evidence of sexual reproduction in a flowering plant, a cluster of 18 small flowers from the Cretaceous period.
Freezing time includes microscopic tubes that grow from pollen grains and penetrate the stigma, part of the female reproductive system of the flower.