Since its classification in 1872, scientists have bestowed a special record to a flower that has been frozen in time for more than 33 million years. For over a century, it has been known as the largest-known specimen of a flower preserved entirely in amber.
And now, after all that time, researchers must come to grips with a bombshell revelation: the flower has been masquerading as the wrong species. A recent re-analysis by German researchers reveals that the flower, nearly three times larger than those typically preserved in the fossil record, is the earliest-known member of the sweetleaf family—and not the tea family, as was originally presumed.
The case of mistaken identity was brought to light on Jan. 11 in a study published in the journal Scientific Reports.
