Description

Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian)

Dakota Formation

Westwater, UT, USA

29mm pinnae on 117mm slab.

Leaf, Fern.

Gleichenia is a fern also known from the Early Cretaceous of England and it still lives today.  That occurrence and this specimen from the Late Cretaceous of Utah indicate that it had a much wider geographic range in the geologic past.  Today, it lives in parts of Africa, Madagascar, and islands in the Indian Ocean