European Palaeobotany and Palynology Conference 2026

The origin of angiosperms is related to a singular evolutionary event, the origin of the carpel. To understand the origin of angiosperms may require novel approaches to how we think about the problem. The origin of the angiosperms may be considered as a series of existentially related events through the Mesozoic, beginning in the Triassic and culminating in a suite of angiosperm characters...

Information on the order in which pleisiomorphic angiosperm characters arose may be helpful in identifying the most likely close stem-relatives or ancestors of angiosperms from the fossil record. We have developed a method to determine the sequence of acquisition of angiosperm-specific traits by exploiting gene and genome duplication events as temporal reference points. As a test case, we...

The lower Aptian flora of the Crato Fossil Lagerstätte in the Araripe Basin in NE Brazil opens a unique window to a late Mesozoic low latitude paleo-ecosystem in northern Gondwana. The investigation of the floristic composition of the Crato Formation flora and the combined analysis of its floristic composition and geological background data provide an important opportunity to explore the...

Discoveries of new fossil taxa, improved data on known fossils, and reinterpretations of the morphology of key taxa have challenged previous hypotheses on seed plant phylogeny and the origin of angiosperms. To test the impact of these developments, we amassed a data set with 10 new taxa, including Doyleales (Cretaceous, some originally assigned to the Triassic "seed fern" order...

The Las Hoyas fossil site (Cuenca, Spain), is a Barremian (129 Ma) Konservat-Lagerstätte renowned for its exceptional preservation. This study analyzes its plant community through the fossil associations of taxa present at different spatial and temporal scales: rock layers (containing fossils deposited within a short time window), excavation areas (containing fossils produced in the same...

The Aptian–Albian interval of the Early Cretaceous (121.4–100.5 Ma) was a pivotal phase in land plant evolution, marked by rapid angiosperm diversification, major vegetation restructuring, greenhouse climate conditions, elevated global temperatures, and repeated oceanic anoxic events.

The Une flora, a recently discovered compression flora from the Une Formation in Colombia, preserves...

Eleven sedimentary rock samples of the upper 15 m of the Rio da Batateira Formation from the Cascata section (sensu Heimhofer and Hochuli, 2010) have been investigated investigated using routine application of SEM on pollen. The sampled section comprises fluvial to deltaic sedimentary rocks of Aptian age. Up to now, 22 eudicot pollen could have been identified, such as *Trisectoris...

The composition of palynofloras from 41 samples from the ?late Aptian– Cenomanian Wasia Formation in the Arabian Gulf, offshore Saudi Arabia, revealed diverse dinocysts, spores, and gymnosperm and angiosperm pollen.

Angiosperms are comprising up to 25% of the palynoflora and exhibit a great range of morphological types. This remarkable diversity is reflected by more than 50 identified...

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...

Late Cretaceous floras from Central Europe provide crucial insights into early platanoid evolution. This study analyses material recovered from the Cenomanian of the Bohemian Cretaceous Basin and the Coniacian–Santonian of the South Bohemian Basins.
In the Czech Cenomanian, Platanaceae are represented by two types of staminate inflorescences borne on a common axis, varying in arrangement and...

The monocot family Hydrocharitaceae is morphologically characterised by a strong adaptation to aquatic habitats. Members of the family show the greatest variability among aquatic angiosperm families comprising both freshwater and marine species.
We describe fossil fruits from the Turonian-Santonian of the South Bohemian Cretaceous Basin in Czechia. Bonaquella is characterised by radially...

The early diversification of angiosperms has been documented by diverse Cretaceous fossil flowers, most of which are preserved as three-dimensional charcoalifications. Here, we describe Bohemiantha tricarpellata gen. et sp. nov., a new charcoalified flower from the Late Cretaceous of southern Bohemia, Czech Republic. We documented internal and external floral morphology of several specimens...

Two new, closely related taxa of Normapolles flowers are presented. The specimens are preserved as charcoal and morphological and anatomical investigations of the fossil flowers were carried out using scanning electron microscopy and X-ray micro–computed tomography.

The North American material comes from the Allon flora: a diverse and well-preserved late Santonian (Late Cretaceous)...

The Horseshoe Canyon Formation of southern Alberta, Canada, preserves abundant plant fossils from the upper Campanian to lower Maastrichtian, but its macroflora is taxonomically outdated and underutilised for palaeoclimatic reconstruction. We documented fifty-eight plant taxa from the Morrin Bridge locality in the lower Maastrichtian Horsethief Member. The assemblage comprises diverse...

Latest Maastrichtian ecosystems remain central to debates surrounding dinosaurian diversity and ecological resilience prior to the Cretaceous–Palaeogene (K–Pg) mass extinction. However, relatively few studies have examined how floral turnover influenced trophic interactions and ecosystem structure immediately prior to the Chicxulub impact. Here, we reconstruct ecosystem-scale trophic networks...

The Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) transition marked a major ecological reorganization that reshaped South American forests. Latest Cretaceous and earliest Paleogene paleofloras reveal strong geographic variation in vegetation composition and recovery following the end-Cretaceous extinction. In Patagonia, Late Cretaceous forests were dominated by Cheirolepidiaceae, Araucariaceae, and...