Trimerous magnoliid flowers with a unique set of floral and pollen traits from the Late Cretaceous of Southern Bohemia (Czech Republic)
Xieting Wu, Maria von Balthazar, Friðgeir Grímsson, Silvia Ulrich, Andrea M López‐Martínez, Zuzana Heřmanová, Jiří Kvaček, Jürg Schönenberger · 2026
Read Trimerous magnoliid flowers with a unique set of floral and pollen traits from the Late Cretaceous of Southern Bohemia (Czech Republic) by Xieting Wu, Maria von Balthazar, Friðgeir Grímsson, Silvia Ulrich, Andrea M López‐Martínez, Zuzana Heřmanová, Jiří Kvaček, Jürg Schönenberger (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13373870.txt.
Description
Xieting Wu and others describe a remarkably preserved Cretaceous flower from southern Bohemia in a 2026 study. Flower form is central to flowering plant variety, and Cretaceous fossils show that much disparity already existed then. The new fossil, from the Klikov Formation of late Turonian to Santonian age, preserves pollen in place.
Phylogenetic analysis places it with the magnoliid order Piperales, and morphospace analysis ranks it among the most divergent flowering plant flowers known. Named Trimeriantha monopolyada, it is the first clear piperalean flower from the Late Cretaceous. Its unique mix of traits includes one tepal whorl, three stamen whorls, and fused male and female parts. The find widens the known range of early flower design.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Xieting Wu, Maria von Balthazar, Friðgeir Grímsson, Silvia Ulrich, Andrea M López‐Martínez, Zuzana Heřmanová, Jiří Kvaček, Jürg Schönenberger |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 73 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |