Fossils of an “exotic plant” discovered just outside an abandoned town in Utah 55 years ago have no relation to any existing or extinct species, scientists said in a study last month. revealed.
Paleontologists later discovered fossilized leaves of this plant, Osniophyton elongatumFor decades, they believed that this species may be related to the common medicinal root, ginseng.
Steven Manchester, curator of paleobotany at the Florida Museum of Natural History and Utah fossil expert, came across the unidentified fossil while visiting the paleobotany collection at the University of California, Berkeley. This UC Berkeley fossil was in good condition and came from the same area as the 1969 exotic plant.
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Both fossils were excavated from the Green River Formation in eastern Utah, near the former town of Rainbow. About 50 million years ago, the region's landscape included vast lake ecosystems and active volcanoes. The sediments and volcanic ash produced by the lake turned out to be the perfect material to fossilize parts of the ecosystem.
The researchers studied the characteristics of both fossils and looked for families of living plants that had similarities.
Unlike the 1969 fossil, the UC Berkeley specimen had leaves, flowers, and fruit attached. This is a clear difference from what was thought to be associated with ginseng.
In the end, the researchers were unable to match either fossil to the more than 400 families of flowering plants that exist today, in addition to numerous extinct families.
In 1969, scientists studied only fossil leaves without flowers and based their conclusions about ginseng on the pattern and arrangement of the leaf's veins. Detailed information from UC Berkeley fossils allows new researchers to more fully understand what this plant looked like in its heyday and disprove its link to ginseng. It's done.
Still, they were unable to pinpoint specifically what family the plant was related to.
But one thing the Manchester team had but the 1969 discoverers lacked was the gift of modern technological advances.
Using new microscopes and artificial techniques, they were able to look at the fossils in more detail and discovered tiny traces of developing seeds in the fruit of the UC Berkeley fossil. They also discovered the stamens, the male reproductive organs of the flower.
“Typically, the stamens fall off as the fruit grows. And this object seems unusual in that it retains the stamens when it has a mature fruit that is about to scatter its seeds.” I've never seen anything like that in anything like that,” Manchester said. statement.
Comparing the behavior of stamens of different colors did not yield consistent results. But this invasive plant is not the first discovery to cause problems in the Green River Formation. Other plant fossils from this area, bonanza calpum fruit and paribinia The leaves surprised scientists and even led to the discovery of an entire new extinct group.
