A rare flower finally achieves its moment in the sun, about 100 million years after it bloomed.
Researchers at Reg Reagan State University have discovered new species of angiosperms or flowering plants from the Cretaceous period, now preserved in amber fragments found in Myanmar.
Dubbed Valviluculus pleristaminis, it belongs to the Laurel family and it belongs to the Blackheart sassafras found in Australia.
Myanmar and Australia are divided by more than 10,000,000 miles of Australian sea, but at the time the flower was surrounded by resin, part of a continent known as Gondwanaland.
V. The discovery of Pleristamines suggests that it was a continental plateau from Gondwanaland rather than the previous theorization.
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OSU researchers have discovered a new species and genus Valviluculus pleristanis trapped inside amber 100 million years ago. The small male flower spiral has dozens of stamens arranged and their pollinating heads point toward the sky.
‘This isn’t quite a Christmas flower, but it’s a beauty, especially considering it was part of a forest that existed about 100 million years ago,’ said George Poiner Jr., a paleontologist at OSU’s Integrative Biology Department.
‘The male flower is small, about 2 millimeters in circumference, but has about 50 stamens arranged in a circular motion, in which the anthers point towards the sky.’
The stamen is the part of the male flower that produces pollen, while the anthur is the pollen head of the stamen.
“Despite being so small, the rest of the details are still surprising,” said Poiner, author of a research report in the Journal of the Texas Botanical Research Institute.
The ancient supercontinent blossomed on Gondwanaland and was surrounded by amber, the Poinar Theoriz, before it rode slowly across the plateau of the continent known as the Western Burma Block, moving 20,000,000 miles away.
OSU paleontologist George Poin Inner Jr. grabbed a piece of amber. The work of a world-renowned expert in the analysis of plants and animals found in prehistoric matter inspired Michael Crichton to write Jurassic Park.
He and his colleagues at the OSU and its Department of Agriculture named the flower – which is both a new genus and species – Valviluculus pleristeminis.
Valva is the Latin word for the leaf on the folding door, loculus means ‘compartment’, Pleros refers to ‘lots’, and staminis refers to the dozens of male sexual organs of flowers.
These specimens were probably part of a cluster on a similar flowering plant, Pioneer added, ‘some possibly female.’
In addition to its beauty, the fossil flowers are notable for its travels: it blossomed on the ancient supercontinent Gondwanaland and was surrounded by amber before riding on a continental plate called the West Burma Block.
The plate gradually migrated from Australia, Australia to Southeast Asia after a journey of 1,000 miles.
There is a debate about when the western Burma bloc from Gondwanaland was broken, which eventually split into Africa, South America, Australia, Australia, Antarctica, the Indian subcontinent and the Arabian Peninsula.
Some geologists put this date 500 million years ago, while others theorize that it was 200 million years ago.
But, according to Poiner, about 100 million years ago angiosperms only evolved and diversified.
That means the West Burma block could not have been broken before, he said, “which is far behind the dates that were suggested.”
Poiner 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 earliest evidence of sexual reproduction in flowering plants. It is a group of 18 small Cretaceous period flowers.
The timely freeze-frame moment consists of a part of the female reproductive system of flowers, a microscopic tube growing from the pollen grains and penetrating the stigma.
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