Two Large Fossil Leaves (Browniea, Castanea) - Montana

This is a pair of large fossil leaves from the Paleocene aged Fort Union Formation of Montana. The longer, thinner specimen is a 6.1" long leaf of Castanea itermedia a plant genus including the chestnuts and chinkapins. The fatter specimen is a 5.3" long leaf of Browniea serrata. They are nicely presented on a squared off, 11x8.4" slab of rock.

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 a couple of repaired cracks in the rock, and the leaves have some small areas of touchup work down to them, where some of the color had flaked onto the negative when split.