Description

Middle Miocene (Seldovian)
Sucker Creek Formation – Sucker Creek Flora
Malheur County, Oregon, USA
62mm slab with two 13mm winged seeds.

Plant. Seed.

Isolated seeds are difficult-to-impossible to identify if they are not known from specimens connected to the rest of the plant.  This is often the case with extinct plants from the Paleozoic or Mesozoic with no modern relatives.

A “winged seed” bears an extended surface that allows them to whirl in the air on the way to the ground like a helicopter.  If it catches even a light breeze, it might drift far enough away from its parent tree and other plants to land on a sunny patch of ground where it can sprout and mature successfully.