The oldest fully preserved lily discovered in Brazil

There are already 115 million years ago, tropical flowering plants were apparently very diverse and had all the typical characteristics. This is the conclusion of an international team of researchers led by Clément Coiffard of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin. The team reported in the renowned newspaper Plants Nature on the oldest fully preserved lily, Cratolirion bognerianum, which was discovered on a site in present-day Brazil. With the help of 3D computer tomography at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, the details at the back of the fossilized plant could also be analyzed. The results raise new questions about the role of the tropics in the development of past and present ecosystems.

Botanist Dr. Clement Coiffard of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin discovered the oldest fully preserved lily in the research collection: Cratolirion bognerianum was found in the limestone sediments of an ancient freshwater lake of Crato at northeastern Brazil. Cratolirion is one of the oldest known monocotyledonous plants. These include orchids, sweet grasses, lilies and lilies of the valley.

Cratolirion is extraordinarily well preserved. All the roots, the flower and even the individual cells are fossilized. With a length of almost 40 centimeters, the specimen is not only extremely large, but also has almost all the characteristics typical of monocotyledonous plants, including narrow, parallel-veined leaves with a sheath, fibrous roots and triple flowers. .

However, it was not trivial to examine the fossilized object because it consisted of iron oxides associated with the stone. To see the details here, Coiffard collaborated with the HZB physicist, Dr. Nikolay Kardjilov, expert in three-dimensional X-ray and neutron analysis. At HZB, he also developed a 3D X-ray tomography and refined the analysis of the data so that no disturbing artefact will occur when searching for large flat objects. This allowed to analyze the details of the inflorescence hidden in the stone. A color code in the scanner makes these details visible: the main axis is marked in turquoise, the support sheets in dark green, the pistils in light green and the remains of the real petals are still visible in orange.

Many early dicotyledonous flowering plants have already been described in the same sediments of the ancient freshwater lake of Crato. These include water lilies, aron sticks, drought resistant magnolias and pepper and laurel-like species. Unlike other flowering plants of the same age from the United States, Portugal, China and Argentina, the flowering plants of Crato-Flora have an unusual diversity. This may be due to the fact that Crato Lake was at lower latitudes, but all other fossils of early-flowering plants are from mid-latitudes.

From this recently described plant, Cratolirion bognerianum and the species of Crato flora mentioned above, it can be deduced that tropical flowering plants were already very diverse. "It is likely that flowering plants are native to the tropics, but very few fossils have been described so far," explains Coiffard. This study therefore provides new information on the role of the tropics in the development of early flowering plants and their rise to global supremacy.