Description

Late Oligocene
Fisher Formation
Goshen, Lane County, OR, USA
35mm seed on 72mm slab.

Plant. Seed.

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

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 to an open patch of ground where it can sprout successfully in the sun rather than just drop next to the tree it fell from where it has less of a chance of growing. It’s a nice evolutionary innovation of the past that still works today.