Kajanthus lusitanicus, a new species of Portuguese flower from the Cretaceous period

The fossil of a new genus and species of flower was identified through fieldwork carried out as part of the CretaCarbo project, funded by FCT and coordinated by researcher Luís Duarte from the University of Coimbra. The fossil dates back to the Cretaceous period, between 146 and 100 million years ago, and is very similar to a plant that until now was thought to exist only in China.

In collaboration with Else Marie Friis, from the Stockholm Natural History Museum, paleobotanists Mário Miguel Mendes and João Pais from the Center for Research in Geological Science and Engineering (CICEGe) at the Faculty of Science and Technology of the New University of Lisbon (FCT-UNL) identified, for the first time in Europe, a fossil of an angiosperm flower—a group of plants whose main characteristic is the presence of fruit and flowers.

Belonging to the Larizabalaceae family and the Ranunculales order, the plant is very similar to another currently endemic to China, Sinofranchetia chinensis. The fossil of the Portuguese flower from the Lower Cretaceous found in a deposit in the Leiria region corresponds to a new genus and species now described in an article published in the journal Grana.

According to Luís Duarte, the discovery is "an excellent contribution to the advancement of paleobotany in Portugal, as well as to our knowledge of the evolution of angiosperms around the world." The name given to it— Kajanthus lusitanicus—honors Danish paleobotanist Kaj Raunsgaard Pedersen of Aarhus University and identifies the region of the globe where it was discovered—lusithanicus (Portugal).

Some of the oldest and best-preserved early angiosperms are found in the Middle Cretaceous of western Portugal. The CretaCarbo project aims to study the deposits from this period on the western Portuguese coast, contributing to our understanding of the rapid and intense global oceanographic and environmental changes that profoundly affected ecosystems, including terrestrial plants, in particular the early evolution and expansion of angiosperms.