15-Million-Year-Old Amber Strychnine Fossils Preserved Pretty in Resin

Summary: Two 15-million-year-old amber strychnine fossils are preserved pretty in resin in a retired professor’s 30-year-old collections from the Dominican Republic.

George Poinar found Strychnos electri encased in amber during a trip to a Dominican amber mine in 1986; Lena Struwe selected the scientific name for the amber strychnine fossils in 2015: George Poinar Jr., No usage restrictions, via EurekAlert!

Beautiful, deadly strychnine lianas and trees are one species stronger with the identification of two 15-million-year-old amber strychnine fossils, according to an article published Feb. 15, 2016, in the journal Nature Plants.

Two researchers in New Jersey and in Ohio base their findings upon two flowers preserved in amber even though tree resin typically fossilizes specimens in fragments. The fossilized flowers come from a collection of 500 fossils gathered in 1986 from one amber mine in the Cordillera Septentrionale mountains of the Dominican Republic.

George Poinar, Emeritus Professor of Integrative Biology at Oregon State University in Corvallis, describes the collection of preserved Caribbean specimens as consisting predominantly of fossilized insects. Amber encases the flowers so clearly that “These flowers looked like they had just fallen from a tree.”

Lena Struwe, Chrysler Herbarium Director and School of Environmental and Biological Sciences Associate Professor at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, furnishes the fossil’s name. She gives the 15-million-year-old amber strychnine fossils the scientific name Strychnos electri since encasement in ἤλεκτρον (electron, Greek for “amber”) accounts for the fossil’s clear preservation.

Amber from Hymenea protera of Mexico, Proto-greater Antilles and South America has 15-million-year-old to 25-million-year-old or 30-million-year-old to 45-million-year-old dates according to foraminifera or cocolithophore shell-dating. It is cooperative with date-stamping, by comparison-dating shells, and with reconstructing animals and plants from mid-Tertiary geologic periods, during which small bees are frequent fossil inclusions.

Professor Struwe judges the fossilized flowers as possibly bee-pollinated because “pollen grains on the outside of the petals” are detectable.

Dominican amber keeps anthers, corollas, stamens and style of the 15-million-year-old amber strychnine fossils intact on hair-covered, trumpet-shaped flowers less than 10 millimeters (0.39 inches) long. The 15-million-year-old amber strychnine fossils lack any indication of floral color even though Professor Struwe describes most of today’s 200 Strychnos species as cream or white-colored.

Professor Poinar mentions regarding woody possibilities as shrubs, trees, vines: “I think the flower was probably a vine (liana) and lived in a humid, tropical forest.”

Professor Struwe notes that resinous immersions are likelier for flowers than for “larger and often more firmly attached” branches, fruits and leaves of shrubs and trees. She opines: “Flowers from a lianous plant […] could have fallen down or been blown around and landed in resin.”

The 15-million-year-old amber strychnine fossils provide first-time resin-preserved proofs of a beautiful, previously unknown member of the Loganiaceae family of flowering herbs, shrubs, trees and vines.

Both specimens, with petal lobes curving gracefully backward and downward, qualify for deadly classifications since curare and strychnine invade leaves, roots and stems of Strychnos species.

Professor Struwe reveals far less toxic associations for 15-million-year-old amber strychnine fossils as the first asterid group members to be discovered in New World tree resin. Botanists separate asterids into such families as Asteraceae of asters, daisies, dandelions, sunflowers; Lamiaceae of oregano, peppermint, rosemary, thyme; and Solanaceae of chillies, eggplants, potatoes, tomatoes.

It takes two fossils to let 21st-century science know that asterids are one species earlier and stronger in the Americas.

photo by George Poinar Jr: RT @RT_com, via Twitter Feb. 16, 2016

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

George Poinar found Strychnos electri encased in amber during a trip to a Dominican amber mine in 1986; Lena Struwe selected the scientific name for the amber strychnine fossils in 2015: George Poinar Jr., No usage restrictions, via EurekAlert! @ https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/568662;
(news release URL) No usage restrictions, via EurekAlert! @ https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/531275; (former URL @ http://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/108835.php)

photo by George Poinar Jr.: RT @RT_com, via Twitter Feb. 15, 2016, @ https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/699487755521413120

For further information:

“15-Million-Year Fossilized Flowers Discovered Preserved in Amber (PHOTOS).” RT > USA > 16 Feb. 2016.
Available @ https://www.rt.com/usa/332572-fossilized-flowers-millions-years-old/

Boroff, David. 16 February 2016. “New Type of Flower Identified After It Was Encased in Amber, Just Like ‘Jurassic Park,’ for 15 Million Years.” New York Daily News > News.
Available @ http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/flower-15-million-years-old-discovered-article-1.2533582

Chan, Melissa. 15 February 2016. “15 Million-Year-Old Flower Found ‘Perfectly Preserved’ in Amber.” Time > Science > Plants.
Available @ http://time.com/4224917/new-flower-species-amber/

Dunham, Will. 15 February 2016. “Ancient Flower Trapped in Amber Was Probably Poisonous, Researchers Say.” The Christian Science Monitor > Science.
Available @ http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/0215/Ancient-flower-trapped-in-amber-was-probably-poisonous-researchers-say

“Extinct Plant Species Discovered in Amber.” BBC News > Science > Science & Environment > 15 Feb. 2016.
Available @ http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35582991

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Available @ http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/undiscovered-million-year-old-flower-found-perfectly-preserved-in-old-university-amber-collection

Griggs, Mary Beth. 15 February 2016. “New Species of Flower Found Preserved in Amber.” Popular Science > Science.
Available @ http://www.popsci.com/new-species-flower-found-preserved-in-amber

Hays, Brooks. 15 February 2016. “Ancient Sap Yields New Flower Species.” United Press International > Science News.
Available @ http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2016/02/15/Ancient-sap-yields-new-flower-species/2211455554957/

Inglis-Arkell, Esther. 15 February 2016. “Ancient Poisonous Flower Preserved in Amber Looks Dangerously Delicious.” Gizmodo > Botany.
Available @ http://gizmodo.com/ancient-ancestor-of-two-notorious-poisons-looks-dangero-1759150803

Mack, Eric. 15 February 2016. “Prehistoric Flower Perfectly Preserved in Amber Is Older Than Love Itself.” Forbes > Science.
Available @ http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericmack/2016/02/15/twenty-million-year-old-flower-perfectly-preserved-in-amber-jurassic-park-style/#353c1df367c1

Newitz, Annalee. 15 February 2016. “This Flower, Preserved in Amber, May Be 45 Million Years Old.” Ars Technica > Science.
Available @ http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/02/this-flower-preserved-in-amber-may-be-45-million-years-old/

NewsBeat Social. 16 February 2016. "New Species of Flower Found Preserved in Amber for Millions of Years." YouTube.
Available @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9RmYY9gEFU

Oregon State University. 15 February 2016. “Ancient Flowering Plant Was Beautiful, But Probably Poisonous.” Science Daily > Releases.
Available @ https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160215113853.htm

Poinar, George O., Jr.; and Struwe, Lena. 15 February 2016. “An Asterid Flower from Neotropical Mid-Tertiary Amber.” Nature Plants, vol. 2: 16005. DOI:10.1038/nplants.2016.5
Available @ http://www.nature.com/articles/nplants20165

RT @RT_com. 15 February 2016. "Scientists discover 15-million-year-old flowers fossilized in amber (PICS)." Twitter.
Available @ https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/699487755521413120

Sullivan, Rachel. 15 February 2016. “New Species of Ancient Tropical Flower Found in Amber from the Dominican Republic.” ABC News > ABC Science.
Available @ http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-16/ancient-flower-trapped-in-amber-found-in-dominican-republic/7169394

“Trapped in Amber: Flower Identified as New Species.” Phys.Org > Other Sciences > Archaeology & Fossils > Feb. 15, 2016.
Available @ http://phys.org/news/2016-02-amber-species.html