The largest fossil of a flower preserved in amber has been described in detail 150 years after it was first studied 鈥� revealing that it was captured as it released its pollen. Analysis of that pollen has led to its reclassification as a different species.
The fossilised flower was originally discovered and described in 1872, says at the Natural History Museum in Berlin, Germany. The five-petalled flower, which is about 28 millimetres in diameter, is encased in Baltic amber. It is nearly three times as large as other flower fossils found encased in amber, says Sadowski.
It isn鈥檛 certain where the amber came from, but it was probably discovered in a mine in what is now Kaliningrad in Russia, she says. Amber deposits in the mine have previously been dated to between 33.9 million and 38 million years old, so the flower probably came from that period.
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The most likely source of the amber is a resin produced by conifer trees, says Sadowski. 鈥淏ut, in truth, [where it came from] is a mystery and all quite speculative.鈥�
Sadowski and at the University of Vienna in Austria wanted to reanalyse the fossil with modern technologies to describe it in more detail.
In particular, Sadowski wanted to analyse the pollen in the amber, which hadn鈥檛 been previously described. 鈥淧ollen can be very specific and give you a lot of insights,鈥� she says.
The pair scratched a small sample of the pollen off the amber using a scalpel. They found that the amber appears to have encased the flower just as it was releasing pollen. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a special moment preserved,鈥� says Sadowski.
The fossil was originally categorised as coming from a flowering evergreen plant called Stewartia kowalewskii. However, using scanning electron microscopy, the pair discovered that the pollen was unlikely to be from a plant in the Stewartia genus. Instead, it shared similarities with pollen from the modern flowering Asian species of the Symplocos genus found in south-east China and Japan, but isn鈥檛 from any known species that currently exists, says Sadowski.
The pollen analysis has led the pair to rename the fossil as Symplocos kowalewskii.
This recategorisation means that the fossil is probably the first known example of a member of this genus of flowers, says Sadowski. Older flowers from other families have been found, however. The oldest is thought to be and was found in Myanmar in 2001.
鈥淭he study showcases the importance of revisiting fossils first studied decades ago,鈥� says at the University of Oxford. 鈥淓xciting discoveries do not only take place in the field, but also by studying the incredible amount of data that lies 鈥榟idden鈥� in museum collections.鈥�
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