In Myanmar, flowers of an unknown species, which are 100 million years old, were found in amber

Researchers from the University of Oregon have discovered 100 million-year-old flowers in Myanmar. Flowers with a diameter of 3.4 to 5 millimeters were most likely plucked from a tree by a dinosaur in the Cretaceous period.

"Dinosaurs could knock down branches with flowers, they fell into the resin on the araucaria tree, which preserved them to this day," explained Professor George Poinar Jr. It is curious that araucarias belong to agathis, which are currently growing in Australia and New Zealand.

Novoyuzhnouelsky Christmas shrub.

The researchers named the flowers with five petals Tropidogyne pentaptera — penta means "five" in Greek, and ptera means "wings". They were attributed to the currently existing plants of the Cunoniaceae family, which nowadays includes shrubs and trees with leathery leaves and small flowers growing in the Southern hemisphere.

Scientists managed to properly examine seven flowers. They have preserved five long sepals, a nectar disk and in some - an ovary (the lower part of the pistil) with protruding "ribs".

How did the distant relatives of the Myanmar fossil end up in modern Australia? Professor Poinar explained that, most likely, the place in Myanmar where the flowers were found was part of Greater India, which separated from Gondwana, the procontinent of the Southern hemisphere, and joined South Asia. Malaysia, including Burma, was formed during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic era due to the movement of lithospheric plates.