Oak leaf – Quercus stellata

Pliocene

Rita Blanca Formation

Oldham County, TX USA.

Beautiful 50mm leaf on 136mm slab from an undescribed playa lake deposit.

Plant.

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 drier and cooler across the Oligocene and Miocene.

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