Beautiful amber fossil flower reveals plant history of New World

This perfectly preserved prehistoric flower embedded in amber is thought to be a long-lost relative of modern plants including sunflowers, coffee, peppers, potatoes and mint. Its discovery in a mine in the Dominican Republic represents the first evidence that this major group of plants – the asterids – comprising some 80,000 species, had reached the New World by between 15 and 45 million years ago, the estimated age of the fossil amber. continue