Description

Florissantia speirii (Lesquereux) Manchester 1992.
Oligocene
Florissant Shale
Florissant, Colorado, USA
Rare 27mm flower with stem on 143mm slab.

Plant. Flower.

Florissantia is an extinct genus of plant in the Family Malvaceae which includes cotton, hollyhock, durian, linden tree, mallow, and above all, cacao, the seeds of which are used now to make chocolate. Florissantia fossils are found in the Eocene to Oligocene of western North America and the Miocene of eastern Asia.

Here’s a flower your girlfriend won’t appreciate unless she’s a botanist.  Flowers are rare in the fossil record due to their fragility- even in deposits like Florissant where other delicate plant structures have been preserved.