Cistus
Cistus is a genus of flowering plants in the rockrose family Cistaceae, containing about 34 species and a similar number of natural hybrids. They are perennial shrubs found on dry or rocky soils throughout the Mediterranean region, from Morocco, Spain, Italy, Greece, through to the Middle East, and also on the Canary Islands.

Alvesgaspar · 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
- rockrosePBDB
- Sits inside
- CistaceaePBDB
- Diet
- "photoautotroph"PBDB, for Angiospermae
Time the record covers
At least 1.8 million years on record.
The record covers at least 2.58 Mya to 774 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 5.333 Mya to 0 Mya.
8 occurrences of Cistus on record. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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
8 occurrences- Pliocene63%
- Pleistocene38%
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 the same rock
116 taxa- Ericaceae8 sites
- Pinus8 sites
- Quercus8 sites
- Poaceae7 sites
- Alnus6 sites
- Cathaya6 sites
- Cupressaceae6 sites
- Apiaceae5 sites
- Betula5 sites
- Carya5 sites
- Cistaceae5 sites
- Engelhardia5 sites
- Gleicheniaceae5 sites
- Myrica5 sites
- Osmunda5 sites
- Salix5 sites
- Sphagnum5 sites
- <Amaranthaceae/Chenopodiaceae>4 sites
- <not identified>4 sites
- Acer4 sites
- Arceuthobium sp.4 sites
- Asteraceae4 sites
- Corylus4 sites
- Euphorbiaceae4 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 8 sites for Cistus, 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
4 references- Niche evolution versus niche conservatism and habitat loss determine persistence and extirpation in late Neogene European Fagaceae5
- Site U13851
- Site U13871
- Le gisement pleistocene de Morgadinho, en Algarve1
Each of the 8 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. 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 content1
Picture of Cistus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Alvesgaspar
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Cistus was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Cistus”
- 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 itCistaceae through timeThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1753