Paleobotany collection: catalogs and information

A fossil cone of Glyptostrobus oregonensis, an extinct cypress.

The UCMP paleobotany catalog (available online) contains information on over 33,400 specimens of fossil plants, algae, and fungi. The paleobotany type collection contains specimens which were illustrated or referred to in a publication as representative of a particular form the author(s) studied. Primary types are the specimens chosen as nameholders when a species or subspecies is first described. These include the holotype (the primary nameholder of a species) and paratypes (additional specimens used in the original species description). Secondary types are additional specimens assigned to a species and include primarily hypotypes (those specimens figured) and homeotypes (unfigured specimens). Although the latter type categories are not formally recognized by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN), they generally represent additional well preserved specimens from the original collections. In addition, specimen data and images of UCMP's modern cleared leaf collection are now available online. The database has been checked, but may still contain errors.

For more about our paleobotany collections, see the paleobotanical holdings page.

Specimen data fields

The data fields and information currently available for each specimen in our Paleobotany catalog are listed below.

SPECIMEN NUMBER: Original catalog number
SPECIMEN No. 2: Number assigned to specimens with a duplicate specimen number
TAXON INFO (if known): Class, Subclass, Order, Family, Genus, Species
MODIFIERS: e.g., cf., sp., var.
OTHER ID: e.g., field used for common name, if fossil undetermined, study specific designations
CITATION INFO: Author, year, publication name, volume and page numbers, plate and figure numbers
TYPE STATUS: i.e., holotype, paratype, etc.
ELEMENT: Plant organ
LOCALITY INFO: Locality prefix and number, locality name, flora, continent/ocean, country, state/province, county, formation, period, epoch
LOCATION in collection: Rack and bay number; storage age
REMARKS: Additional information

We follow the classification scheme of Cronquist, 1988 (The Evolution and Classification of Flowering Plants, 2nd ed.) for the flowering plants (dicots and monocots).

Go to the collections database page to begin your search.
 

Fossil cone photo by Diane Erwin © 2003 UCMP.