Description

Early Eocene
Green River Formation
Kemmerer, Wyoming, USA
Rare 9mm palm flower on 68mm slab from the “split fish” layers.
Flower,

Rare 6mm palm flower on 50mm slab.

Phoenix is a plant genus containing various date palms and dates back to the Late Cretaceous.  It eventually died out in North America as climates trended cooler across the continent.  It still lives today in northern Africa and Asia.

For more information, see:

Allen, S.E.  2015.

Fossil Palm Flowers from the Eocene of the Rocky Mountain Region with Affinities to Phoenix L. (Arecaceae: Coryphoideae).  International Journal of Plant Sciences,  Vol. 176, No. 6 (July/August 2015), pp. 586-596.