Sprecher
Beschreibung
The South Asian Kachin amber deposit from northern Myanmar is renowned for its remarkable fossil preservation, providing unprecedented insights into the early evolution and diversification of angiosperms. We investigated mid-Cretaceous flowers with remarkable stellate trichomes preserved in this amber by combining synchrotron X-ray scans of previously undescribed specimens and datasets from previous studies. We re-examined and reassessed the morphology and affinities of several described fossils, including the angiosperm flowers Antiquifloris Poinar and R. Buckley and Eophylica Shi, Wang et Engel (Rhamnaceae), but also the supposed green alga Electrophycus Poinar & Brown. The high-resolution scans enabled three-dimensional visualization of floral structures and revealed morphological details that had not been previously documented. Our analyses shows that all examined taxa share similar internal and external characters that do not correspond to any known extant or extinct angiosperm family, including as the previously suggested Rhamnaceae. Phylogenetic analyses using broad-scale angiosperm datasets suggest that these fossil flowers are affiliated with early-diverging angiosperm lineages related to Austrobaileyales or Chloranthaceae. Our findings are not only more consistent with other Early- to mid-Cretaceous angiosperm floras, but also align more closely with previous paleoenvironmental reconstructions of the Kachin amber forest.