Oak leaf – Quercus stellata

Pliocene

Rita Blanca Formation

Hartley County, TX USA.

Beautiful 75mm oak leaf on 150mm slab from an undescribed playa lake deposit.

Quercus is the genus for oak trees.  The earliest confidently-identified fossils are pollen from the Late Paleocene of Austria and by the Middle Eocene Quercus is known from North America, Europe, and Asia.  Oaks originated in tropical forests but they continued to thrive while other trees retreated to lower latitudes as climates became cooler and drier across the Oligocene and Miocene.

Q. stellata is the modern post oak (iron oak).