Huge 4.4" Fossil Ginkgo Leaf Plate - North Dakota

Huge Fossil Ginkgo Leaf Plate - North Dakota #19804

This is a very large, and spectacularly preserved of fossil Gingko leaf (Ginkgo adiantoides) from the Sentinel Butte Formation of North Dakota. It is finely detailed and the light preservation contrasts well against the dark orangish-brown rock. Most of leaves are much smaller than this, and typically not complete.

The leaf is 3.5" wide, 4.4" tall (including stem) and lies on a 6.3x6.2" slab of rock. There is one repaired crack running through the rock and the top of the leaf. It comes with an acrylic display stand.

During this time in the Paleocene epoch, the Ginkgo genus was only represented by a single polymorphic species, formerly described as Ginkgo adiantoides. In 2012, the taxon Ginkgo cranei was assigned in place of Ginkgo adiantoides. This species was distributed in much of the northern regions of North America, which had a hot, humid climate at the time. Its leaves were virtually indistinguishable from modern-day Ginkgo biloba. These species of Ginkgo went extinct approximately 7 million years ago.