Description

Early Cretaceous (Berriasian)

Yixian Formation

Huangbangi Valley, Beipiao, Liaoning Province, China

Big 91mm inflorescence on 158mm slab. Very rare.

Cone, Conifer.

Elatocladus is a cone-bearing plant (conifer) that appeared during the Triassic Period and died out at the end of the Cretaceous.  We think of the K/T extinction as not only the end of a geologic era, but also the end of the dinosaurs but it also wiped a number of genera of other animals and plants.  During its time on earth, Elatocladus spread out across the world.  Its fossils are known from every continent including Antarctica which gives us an idea of how much the warmer the world was during the Mesozoic Era.

Here’s a nice conifer fossil from a time just after flowering plants appeared.  By the end of the Cretaceous flowering plants were becoming the dominant plants on earth.

An inflorescence usually refers to a flower cluster in a flowering plant but it can also refer to a flower-like structure in other plants.