An exceptionally large fossil flower preserved in amber

Jan. 13 () –

Scientists from the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin and the University of Vienna have found the largest flower discovered so far in amberalmost 3 centimeters in diameter.

This flower and its pollen were enclosed and preserved in resin some 38-34 million years ago and it is about three times larger than most floral inclusions.

Amber is like a time capsule: it preserves millions of years of plant and animal inclusions in incredible detail. Plant inclusions in amber are especially rare, but extremely valuable to science. They make it possible to reconstruct the vegetation during various periods of the Earth’s history and to understand the flora of the so-called amber forests.

The floral inclusion in this study is encased in Baltic amber and comes from the largest amber deposit in the world, located in Kaliningrad, on the Baltic Sea coast. The flower was described more than 150 years ago as Stewartia, a genus belonging to the tea family (Theaceae). However, in subsequent years, this was considered doubtful.

In general, flower amber inclusions are a few millimeters in size and only rarely larger than 10mm. It is still unknown which processes can limit the size of plant inclusions. However, it is suggested that, depending on the surface tension and viscosity of the resin, smaller plant organs are likely to be retained more easily than larger ones. The scientists discovered numerous grains of pollen shed by the stamens of the amber flower. “It is very rare to find such a large flower in amber, with the stamens at the perfect point to be just open to release their pollen while the flower was held in resin,” he says. it’s a statement Eva-Maria Sadowski, researcher at the Berlin museum and co-author of the find.

Pollen was carefully removed from the inclusion with a scalpel, and the scientists then examined the pollen grains under a scanning electron microscope. “Only extremely high magnification allows us to see the morphological details of pollen grains, which are only a few micrometers in size,” adds Christa Hofmann.

The characteristics of the pollen and the inclusion of the flower helped the scientists assign this fossil to an Asian member of the genus Symplocos, which contains trees and shrubs in the “sweetleaf” family (Symplocaceae). It is the first fossil record of this genus in Baltic amber, but Symplocos was not the only plant in the Baltic amber forest.

Between 34 and 38 million years ago, this forest was home to numerous plant species whose modern relatives are also restricted to East and Southeast Asia.