Leaf mysteries revealed through the computer's eye

A computer program that learns and can categorize leaves into large evolutionary categories such as plant families will lead to greatly improved fossil identification and a better understanding of flowering plant evolution, ...

First rainforests arose when plants solved plumbing problem

A team of scientists, including several from the Smithsonian Institution, discovered that leaves of flowering plants in the world's first rainforests had more veins per unit area than leaves ever had before. They suggest ...

A new field of research: Crystal traces in fossil leaves

In fossil leaves, puzzling structures are often visible under the microscope. Researchers at the University of Bonn have now been able to show for the first time that they originate from calcium oxalate crystals. On the one ...

Fossil forests under Antarctic ice

In around 1833 the first specimens of fossilized wood from Antarctica were reported by surgeon, naturalist and artist James Eights.

Fossils show 66 million years of insects eating kauri trees

Exquisitely preserved feeding marks on fossil conifer leaves show that the same insect feeding and fungi persisted for millions of years on the same type of plant, from ancient Patagonian rainforests to the modern rainforests ...

Through fossil leaves, a step towards Jurassic Park

For the first time, researchers have succeeded in establishing the relationships between 200-million-year-old plants based on chemical fingerprints. Using infrared spectroscopy and statistical analysis of organic molecules ...

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