Aralia

Aralia, or spikenard, is a genus of the family Araliaceae, consisting of 68 accepted species of deciduous or evergreen trees, shrubs, and rhizomatous herbaceous perennials. The genus is native to Asia and the Americas, with most species occurring in mountain woodlands. Aralia plants vary in size, with some herbaceous species only reaching 50 centimetres (20 in) tall, while some are trees growing to 20 metres (66 ft) tall.

Aralia

‘Uncle Carl’ (カールおじさん). · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
spikenardPBDB
Sits inside
AraliaceaePBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Angiospermae

Time the record covers

At least 96 million years on record.

The record covers at least 100.5 Mya to 3.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 143.1 Mya to 2.58 Mya.

Late Jurassic — about 0 of 85 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 8 of 85 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 5 of 85 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 2 of 85 occurrencesEocene — about 10 of 85 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 26 of 85 occurrencesMiocene — about 31 of 85 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 3 of 85 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 85 occurrences146–141 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences141–136 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences136–131 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences131–126 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences126–122 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences122–117 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences117–112 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences112–107 Mya — about 2 occurrences107–102 Mya — about 3 occurrences102–97 Mya — about 2 occurrences97–92 Mya — about 1 occurrence92–88 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences88–83 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences83–78 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences78–73 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences73–68 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences68–63 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences63–58 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences58–54 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences54–49 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences49–44 Mya — about 4 occurrences44–39 Mya — about 4 occurrences39–34 Mya — about 1 occurrence34–29 Mya — about 2 occurrences29–24 Mya — about 17 occurrences24–19 Mya — about 10 occurrences19–15 Mya — about 6 occurrences15–9.7 Mya — about 14 occurrences9.7–4.9 Mya — about 8 occurrences4.9–0 Mya — about 3 occurrences100.5 Mya3.6 Mya146 Mya0 Mya

85 occurrences of Aralia on record, most of them in the Miocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

85 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

14 formations

Sepulcher — 44.00°N, 111.00°WSepulcher — 44.00°N, 110.00°WCheyenne Sandstone — 37.45°N, 99.08°WFrontier — 41.60°N, 110.55°WFrontier — 41.79°N, 110.54°WLamar River — 44.00°N, 110.00°WBlackleaf — 48.30°N, 113.37°WCommotion — 54.42°N, 120.37°WDunvegan — 56.22°N, 120.12°WFort Union — 49.04°N, 106.58°WPatapsco — 37.38°N, 77.28°WEutaw — 32.41°N, 84.83°WNiveau du gypse d'Aix — 43.52°N, 5.45°EWuyun — 49.28°N, 129.67°ESanying — 26.46°N, 99.43°ETuscaloosa — 33.17°N, 87.43°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Aralia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 61 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Aralia and its relatives

Miocene

Where Aralia and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

362 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 17 sites for Aralia, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

24 references

Each of the 85 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 12 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content3

Picture of Aralia

Credit
‘Uncle Carl’ (カールおじさん).
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D scan

Licence
CC0 — this site’s default, not the record’s
Commercial use
the licence allows it
Specimen
Aralia kellingtoniana (Newberry) Saporta & Marion

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC0 Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itAraliaceae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1753