Sixty-four million years ago, the east coast of Patagonia was much warmer and wetter than it is today. Fossil wood, leaves, and flowers from Chubut Province, Argentina indicate that where today there is only steppe there once was forest. Among the flowering trees were ancient Cunoniaceae, including Lacinipetalum spectabilum known from elaborate fossil flowers like the one shown below. The fossil flowers were gently buried in a muddy tidal channel, preserving the sepals, the delicate fringed petals, and the stamens with pollen. Lacinipetalum is most closely related to tribe Schizomerieae in the Cunoniaceae, which includes the New South Wales Christmas bush; but it differs in having a fully duplicated flower, with 8-10 sepals, 8-10 petals, and 4 carpels, rather than the normal condition of 4-6 sepals and petals and 2 carpels seen in most living Cunoniaceae. This group no longer occurs in South America, today they grow in Australasia and South Africa. The fossils are described in Jud et al. 2018, available here.
