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Joe Fortier posted an update 6 years, 2 months ago
6 years, 2 months ago6 years, 2 months agoHi. I’m looking for information about the trademark fossil rose on the Stonerose website. I teach a botany class at Omak and would like this information for the class.
Thanks
Joe
Hi @joe-fortier, I am tagging some myFOSSIL members who can help you learn more: @mackenzie-smith, @gregg-wilson– can you provide Joe with some information about the Stonerose fossil?
Hi @joe-fortier! The famous Stonerose flower is Florissantia quilchenensis. It is in the Malvales. The sepals are larger than and often mistaken for petals. I believe this is the only species at Stonerose though there are 3 in total. The genus us named after the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument (CO) locality.
MacKenzie, Thank you for this info. It will be of interest to my students.
Did you mean this is the only specimen of F. quilchenensis at Stonerose?
No problem! Multiple specimens of the same species have been found at Stonerose but only one species has been found there. (There are a total of three species in the genus.) A good resource for the site is the guidebook done by Kathleen Pigg, Melanie Devore and Karl Volkman. And of course as Gregg said, the site itself.
Again, thanks for this info. I am looking forward to getting there in April.
Thanks for your interest Joe! To add to MacKenzie’s post, normally only the calyx of the flower is found – it would have acted like a sail to catch the breeze and travel far from the original plant and perhaps that is why we have never found corresponding leaves of Florissantia (which should be underlined or italicized {I’m not sure how to do this here}) in Republic. If you go to the Stonerose web site stonerosefossil.org and connect with Travis Wellman, the operations manager, he can probably send you some images showing petals and other structures not normally seen. Another point is that Stonerose is named after the earliest members of the rose family and not Florissantia – which is not a rose family member! We’d love to see you in Republic – perhaps at the Member’s Dig April 27-9!