A 100-million-year old piece of amber discovered in Kachin State’s Hukawng Valley has been found to contain the oldest evidence of sexual reproduction in a flowering plant, reports Terra Daily. The cluster of 18 tiny flowers from a now extinct mid-Cretaceous-era plant includes one in the process of making new seeds for the next generation. “In Cretaceous flowers we’ve never before seen a fossil that shows the pollen tube actually entering the stigma,” said George Poinar, Jr. of Oregon State University (OSU). Researchers from OSU and Germany published their findings on the fossils in the Journal of the Botanical Institute of Texas. The newly-described genus and species of flower was named Micropetasos burmensis.
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