![]() Image credit: George Poinar Jr., Oregon State University.Īccording to the scientist, viviparity in plants typically shows up in one of two ways. Needles at tip of Pinus cembrifolia’s hypocotyl. “At the sprouts’ tips are needle clusters, some in bundles of five, associating the fossil with the extinct pine species Pinus cembrifolia, which was previously described from Baltic amber.” “I find it fascinating that the seeds in this small pine cone could start to germinate inside the cone and the sprouts could grow out so far before they perished in the resin.” “That’s part of what makes this discovery so intriguing, even beyond that it’s the first fossil record of plant viviparity involving seed germination,” Professor Poinar said. Precocious germination in pine cones is so rare that only one naturally occurring example of this condition, from 1965, has been described in the scientific literature. “Seed germination in fruits is fairly common in plants that lack seed dormancy, like tomatoes, peppers and grapefruit, and it happens for a variety of reasons. “Angiosperms, which directly or indirectly provide most of the food people eat, have flowers and produce seeds enclosed in fruit.” ![]() Most typically, by far, those occurrences involve angiosperms.” “We tend to associate viviparity - embryonic development while still inside the parent - with animals and forget that it does sometimes occur in plants. ![]() “Crucial to the development of all plants, seed germination typically occurs in the ground after a seed has fallen,” Professor Poinar said. Image credit: George Poinar Jr., Oregon State University. A 40-million-year-old cone of Pinus cembrifolia in a piece of Eocene Baltic amber.
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