New research shows that a fossilized plant from the Green River Formation is even stranger than scientists originally thought. In 1969, the species was dubbed Othniophyton elongatum, which translates to “alien plant.” It was classified as a relative of the ginseng family.
“So the original fossils were just the leaves, … but they later found more specimens, and in several of those, we actually find not just the leaves, but … a stem that also had fruits and budding systems in it,” said Julian Eduardo Correa-Narvaez, a PhD student at the University of Florida and one of the authors of the study.
He said that despite the complexity of the fossil, the plant was difficult to classify.
“The original identification did not hold. … So it became trying to find, what could this very detailed fossil, but very unique set of characteristics – what could the taxonomic affinity be of this fossil?” Correa-Narvaez said.
Forty-seven million years ago, when this plant lived, the Colorado Plateau was a warm, tropical environment. Angiosperms, or plants that produce flowers, are thought to have been well-established by this point.
“Darwin described it as an ‘abominable mystery,’ because angiosperms seem to appear and rapidly take over systems in such a way that it feels incongruous in the way that we sometimes think about evolution,” Correa-Narvaez said.
DNA analysis of modern plants reveals that angiosperms split from other plants long before they began to appear in the fossil record. That’s why it’s still so important to characterize and classify plant fossils, Correa-Narvaez says – to help untangle their evolutionary history.
“Plants are incredibly important. … They sometimes become the background thing. But they are some of the most important species in seeing the ecology of a place,” Correa-Narvaez said.
