Early Cretaceous

Jiulongshan Formation

Daohugou Village, China

53mm cone on 73mm slab.

Cone.

Some plant fossils are difficult to identify.  Some plant parts are very similar across genera and it gets more complicated the further you go back in time especially as far back as the Early Cretaceous.

This is the kind of oddball specimen that an advanced collector would be interested in.

The Early Cretaceous was a time when dinosaurs rebounded from a time of relatively minor extinctions.  Flowering plants appeared at this time and would begin to dominate the plant world by the end of the period though conifers would remain significant members of ecosystems to the present day.