What if the coffee you drink and the potatoes you eat today have a hidden survival story dating back 80 million years? An ancient fossil recently discovered in California has turned the history of key flowering plants on its head. It suggests that vital crops like coffee, tomatoes, potatoes, and mint evolved far earlier than scientists had previously believed. This rare find, unearthed from the depths of the Cretaceous period.
The fossil, named Palaeophytocrene chicoensis, was first discovered in the 1990s during construction work near Granite Bay, California. Yet, it wasn’t until Brian Atkinson, a paleobotanist at the University of Kansas, saw it years later that its true significance became clear.
A Mystery Found in California’s Heart
A surprising 80-million-year-old fossil was found in the Chico Formation near Granite Bay, California, while construction crews were working on housing projects. It wasn’t until years later that Brian Atkinson came across the fossil in the Sierra College Natural History Museum’s collection. He immediately recognized that this was something special. The fruit from the fossil belonged to the Icacinaceae family, a group of plants known to exist in much younger deposits, but never before seen in Cretaceous layers.
“They gladly had me over to look at their fossil plant collection, and I was just kind of blown away by the diversity of plants that these guys were able to dig up in this housing development.” says Atkinson.
The fossil fruit, preserved for millions of years, had a striking surface with patterns that matched plants known from a much later period.
The Fossil That Reveals Ancient Rainforest Life
According to the study published in Nature Plants, this fossil suggests that the rainforests of the Cretaceous period might have been more complex than scientists ever realized. The specimen comes from a group of plants that could have added important structure to ancient rainforests, similar to the role plants play today.
Before the dinosaurs vanished, Earth’s forests were mainly dominated by conifers like pine trees. But this plant relic points to a shift in ecosystems, with flowering plants, like the ones in this find, becoming more prominent.
“The fossil belongs to a group of lianas, which are woody vines that add structural complexity to rainforests. It shows us this group of flowering plants appeared super early in the fossil record. There’d been some hypotheses that they were around in the Cretaceous period — but no good clear evidence.”
The fruit of Palaeophytocrene chicoensis is displayed here. This fossil is permanently housed at the Sierra College Museum of Natural History. Credit: Brian Atkinson
From Cretaceous Plants to Modern Crops
The Palaeophytocrene chicoensis is part of a group of plants that, today, includes some of the crops we use most: coffee, potatoes, and mint. Atkinson’s research shows that these plants, which we now take for granted, have ancient roots that stretch back to the Cretaceous period.
Plants managed to survive the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs, and over time, they evolved into the crops we recognize today. Atkinson is studying how these plants survived such a dramatic event in Earth’s history.
“I’ve been trying to characterize these evolutionary events of flowering plants in the Cretaceous period, when the diversity of these plants just exploded,” he said.