5.3" Red Fossil Leaf (Aesculus) - Montana

This is a Aesculus hickeyi" long, fossil leaf (Aesculus hickeyi) from the Fort Union Formation of Montana. The genus Aesculus with varieties called buckeye and horse chestnut, comprises 13–19 species of flowering plants in the soapberry and lychee family.

The color of the rock and the leaves is rather unusual, and different than most of the leaves seen from the Fort Union Formation. They were collected from a locality where a fire in a nearby coal seem "cooked" the rock at sometime in the past. This changed the color and gave it a chalky texture.

There are some areas of restoration on the surface of the leaf, where there was some flaking onto the negative.