European Palaeobotany and Palynology Conference 2026

During the Devonian, the two largest groups of euphyllophytes, the lignophytes and the ferns s.l., converged independently toward similar stele shapes (i.e., the architecture of primary vascular tissues). Throughout this period, stelar architecure in these groups evolved from ancestors with simple protosteles into a range of diversity that includes most of the stele types present in modern...

The Early Devonian Rhynie chert is one of the most exceptional fossil archives known for exquisitely preserved plants, microbes and animals. These fossils with cellular-scale structures have provided unique insights into early terrestrial life. The Rhynie animal assemblage is composed of various arthropods, including hexapods, myriapods and arachnids, implying a complex faunal structure and...

Forests, since their emergence in the Middle Devonian (c. 400 Ma), have profoundly transformed terrestrial vegetation, climate, and environment. A number of fossil forests from geologic ages have been reported around the globe and studied in light of palaeobotanical systematics, taxonomy and plant composition, yet forest communities and ecosystems remain poorly understood. Here, we compile a...

The historical locality of Bjørnøya (Bear Island, Svalbard) yields one of the few known uppermost Famennian (~360 Ma) terrestrial floras, originally documented by pioneering paleobotanists A.G. Nathorst and H.J. Schweitzer. A forthcoming summer 2026 expedition aims to provide a comprehensive geological context for these plant-bearing strata, integrating high-resolution sedimentology and...

Each organism possesses a unique chemical “fingerprint” known as the elementome, shaped by evolutionary history, mineral availability, and plant function. Portable XRF analysers have recently been used to study the elementomes of herbarium specimens and identify hyperaccumulator species, but this approach has not yet been widely applied to plant fossils. Here, we demonstrates that the...

Plant-insect interactions form the basis of virtually all modern terrestrial trophic networks. However, when and how this modernisation occurred remains unclear. Following the origin of herbivory during the Devonian, minimal levels of plant consumption have been reported in late Palaeozoic studies. From this, it has been hypothesised that during the Middle Pennsylvanian (late Carboniferous),...

Extensive work has been done on modelling plant hydraulics incorporating all organ parts of extant plants. However, these approaches have only initially been applied to extinct plants, yet as whole-plant concepts are exceptionally rare in the fossil record. During the last decades, some studies attempted to create a conductivity model for the medullosans based on the dimensions and...

Coal balls with anatomically plant remains have largely been used for the reconstruction of the Permo-Carboniferous peat-forming vegetation. New materials of coal balls have recently been found from the Lower Permian Taiyuan Formation of Yangquan City, Shanxi Province, North China. The peat-forming plants of the Asselian No. 11 coal seam include Lepidodendron spp., Lepidophylloides sp.,...

The traditional interpretation of Gondwana sediments as exclusively fluvio-lacustrine has been increasingly challenged by evidence supporting Permian marine incursions following the Late Palaeozoic Ice Age. Both peninsular and extra-peninsular Gondwana successions in India preserve indications of marine influence within predominantly non-marine sequences, reflected in fossil occurrences and...

The Early Triassic of the Sydney Basin (southeastern Australia) records successive floral communities dominated by arborescent seed ferns (Peltaspermales, Umkomasiales) and conifers (Voltziales), and shrubby isoëtaleans (Pleuromeiaceae, Isoëtaceae). These changes track the climatic instability following the end-Permian event (ca. 252.3−251.9 Ma), likely driven by recurrent outgassing pulses...

The Dolomites are well-known for their exceptionally well-preserved Triassic successions, providing key records of the Carnian Pluvial Episode (CPE). Occurring around 234 to 232 Ma, the CPE corresponds to a major phase of global climatic change during the Late Triassic, commonly associated with increased humidity and enhanced siliciclastic input into sedimentary basins, as well as significant...

A well-preserved biota consisting of plant macrofossils, palynomorphs, insects, molluscs, crustaceans, actinopterygians and hybodontiforms has recently been recovered from the El Mono Formation in the Atacama Desert. Paleontological and sedimentological data indicate that this assemblage was deposited in a dominatingly lacustrine setting. The quality of preservation justifies classifying this...

The Yangcaogou Flora, a well-preserved Upper Triassic plant assemblage from Western Liaoning, NE China, comprises 77 species in 34 genera and provides a window into East Asian terrestrial ecosystems within a Pangaea framework. We quantify its taxonomic diversity and regional heterogeneity to illuminate the tectonic, climatic, and biogeographic controls on vegetation in Late Triassic...

Pararaucaria patagonica seed cones are remarkably well-suited for in-depth study of their phyllotaxis and architecture thanks to the highly detailed preservation of their gross morphology and anatomy. Originating from the Middle Jurassic of Argentina, these cones can be either long and cylindrical or short and ovoid at maturity. Although superficially distinct, numerous anatomical studies...

Biotic pollination represents a key mutualistic interaction in terrestrial ecosystems, strongly influencing the evolutionary history of plants and animals, yet its origins remain debated. Palynivory, the consumption of spores and/or pollen, has been proposed as a precursor to insect-mediated pollination. Here, we review the fossil record of invertebrate bromalites (coprolites and gut contains)...

The detection and documentation of rare, early angiosperm fossil pollen remain challenging due to low abundance in Lower Cretaceous deposits and limitations of traditional palynological microscopy approaches. The newly developed All-in-One Mounting Method (A1MM) introduces a correlative microscopy approach for the detection and documentation of fossil pollen, while enabling a higher sample...

As components of modern forest ecosystems, woody angiosperms are the legacy of a complex evolutionary history rooted in the Cretaceous. To understand how woody angiosperms rose to global dominance from the Early Cretaceous to the Santonian, we analyzed their fossil wood record based on an exhaustive literature review, focusing on the paleodistribution and regional composition of angiosperm...

Among the seven families and ca. 4,000 living species of Laurales, unisexuality appears to have evolved multiple times across the order. To better understand the various pathways driving the evolution of sexual systems, the full morphological diversity of unisexual flowers and their associated sexual systems (e.g., monoecy vs dioecy) must be considered. Here, we reconstruct the evolution of...

The Normapolles complex is one of the most distinctive and enigmatic elements of the Late Cretaceous. To date, thirteen genera of mesofossil flowers and fruits associated with this taxonomic complex have been identified. However, our understanding of the organization and architectural arrangement of these reproductive structures within inflorescences remains limited.

Here, we report a new...

Needle-leaved conifer shoots are among the most abundant plant fossils found in the Upper Cretaceous sediments of southern Alberta, Canada, and typically are assigned to the subfamilies Taxodioideae or Sequoioideae (Cupressaceae sensu lato). Their taxonomic delineation, however, remains challenging due to the incompletely understood phenotypic plasticity of these taxa. Most Canadian Late...

A diverse and well-preserved assemblage of ~163 spore–pollen taxa from a Cretaceous–Paleogene (K/Pg) boundary interval within the marginal-marine Oyster Bay Member of the Salish Formation (OBM), Vancouver Island, Canada, reveals an attenuated terrestrial floral response to the end-Cretaceous mass extinction. Local extirpation of ~15% of Cretaceous taxa contrasts with the substantially higher...

Taxonomic databases and digital identification tools have become essential resources in palaeobotany. In wood anatomy, the InsideWood database gathers thousands of standardized descriptions and photographs with an identification key. Similarly, the Plant Fossil Names Registry provides comprehensive information on fossil plant taxa, including nomenclature, type specimens, stratigraphic and...

The Early Eocene Climatic Optimum (EECO; c.53–49 Ma) is one of Earth’s hottest times marked by high global temperatures that allowed forests similar to modern tropical regions to thrive within the polar circles. These polar ecosystems were subject to an extremely seasonal light regime and atmospheric CO2 levels vastly different to any modern forests. Although the taxonomic composition of many...

The Eocene collision of Indo-Pakistan into Asia and resulting biotic exchanges contributed to the immense biodiversity of tropical Asia. However, paleobotanical data with robust age controls from pre-interchange Indo-Pakistan are rare, limiting constraints for testing these hypotheses. Previously, mammal assemblages from the early Eocene (ca. 54–50 Ma) Ghazij Formation in Balochistan, Pakistan...

The study of plant-insect interactions in the fossil record is one of particular significance, as it not only gives us a better understanding of the evolution of such relations, through time and space, but also provides information on how said interactions, and by extension the wider ecosystem, reacted to ancient global changes. The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) is major but brief...

The late middle Eocene, subpolar flora from Anglesea (Victoria) is a uniquely informative paleobotanical assemblage from terminal Gondwanan Australia, yet much of its diversity remains undescribed. Using light, fluorescence, and confocal microscopy, we re-examined Anglesea legacy collections (>2,000 organically preserved leaves and corresponding cuticle slides) housed at the Melbourne Museum...

Extant Banksia, an iconic Australian genus, have a series of xeromorphic traits (sclerophyllous leaves and bark; sunken stomata; typically revolute or recurved leaf margins) and are primarily serotinous. Because they are well-adapted to the dry, fire-prone environments of modern Australia, their presence in the fossil record is often interpreted as an indication of seasonality or aridity...

The Silurian and Devonian saw rapid ecological change on the Earth’s surface, going from ecosystems of thin soils, small plants and few large animals, to those of deeper soils, the first trees, and the first terrestrial vertebrates. But many of the most abundant organisms of the Silurian and Devonian do not have close extant relatives. These include early land plants, like the rhyniophytes and...

Based on a detailed study of peat-forming plant communities and their pollen record (Henriet et al., in press), a study was conducted on fossil pollen to identify past human impacts on peatlands and to understand the local vegetation dynamics of such communities. The study focuses on two cores from two peatlands located in the southern edge of the French Massif Central: the Canroute peatland...

Archaeology uses palynology to study past human-landscape interactions. Truly quantitative vegetation reconstructions of archaeological sites and landscapes are crucial for this research, but these are notoriously difficult to obtain from fossil pollen records. Recent advancements in palynological modelling methods like the Landscape Reconstruction Algorithm (LRA) provide an important step...

Conifer leaves can be significant components of fossilized macrofloras and besides being evidence of species presence in the assemblage, they may also contain information about the local paleoenvironment. To strengthen paleoenvironmental inferences based on fossil leaves, we wish to better understand the morphological variability of extant conifer needles. This study focused on three members...

Reconstructing past continental climates is a major objective in palaeobotany, and fossil plants constitute one of the most effective proxies for this purpose. Paleoclimate reconstructions using fossil leaf assemblages can be based either on taxonomic affinities or on physiognomic approaches. These approaches rely on relationships between leaf morphology and climate established from modern...

The morphological diversity of pollen grains can provide important information about several aspects of plant science. The pollen morphological database remains scarce in this eastern and western Himalayan province of the Indian biogeographic zone, despite the rich diversity of angiosperms. The detailed pollen morphometry of various plant taxa from the western and eastern Himalayan region will...