The Largest Flower Ever Found Preserved in Amber
Largest flower ever found
A tawny blossom, almost 40 million years old has recently been rediscovered by a team of researchers. The fossilized flower which looks like it was just plucked out of a bouquet, is the largest flower ever found encased in amber, the team reported on Thursday in a new study published in Scientific Reports. The blossom is so well preserved that the researchers were able to identify its floral descendants now residing a continent away.
The origins of the flower can be traced to the region around the Baltic Sea. This particular region is one of the world's premier amber hotspots thanks to the vast forests of resin-seeping conifers that once covered the area. Sometime during the late Eocene epoch, this flower was most likely situated beneath a conifer tree and a glob of tacky resin oozed out of the tree dripping down onto the flower and ensnaring it, which fully preserved the plant for nearly 40 million years.
The size of the flower
According to study co-author Eva - Maria Sadowski, a paleobotanist at Berlin’s Museum of Natural History – Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science, large flowers are rarely found in amber because it would take an incredibly large outpouring of resin to encase the entire blossom. “If you found a singular flower, they are usually quite small,” she says. Even though the flower is just barely more than an inch across, it is still about three times larger than similar amber - preserved flowers and larger than nearly half of all other Baltic Amber pieces.
The flower was cast aside and forgotten for a long time. The newly reported fossil was uncovered sometime in the 19th century, when scientists scoured local mines and coastlines for amber. The flower, originally named Stewartia kowalewskii in 1872, was put in a glass case filled with modern tree resin for preservation. According to George Poinar Jr., an Oregon State University entomologist, who specializes in studying insects and plants entombed in amber, the flower’s mere existence today is noteworthy. “There were many flowers described back then, but most were lost to science during the World Wars,” says Poinar, who was not involved in the new study.