Crato Formation, 113,000,000 BCE

$38.00

a global revolution of petals & pistils

era: ancestries

elements: gardenia • tuberose • rainwater • green leaves • ocean

feel: pretty, airy, and open

intensity: strong

Flowers are bold in fragrance and color but delicate in body—and yet in northeast Brazil, their petals, pistils, stamens, and stems have survived in stone for more than 100,000,000 years. The Crato formation holds some of the best fossil evidence on the planet of a revolution—when flowering plants spread the globe, filling it with new scents and colors meant to attract pollinators. To see a reconstruction of what researchers propose is the mother flower, see “The ancestral flower of angiosperms and its early diversification.”