Ephedra

Searched as Ephedra exiguua. The Paleobiology Database treats Ephedra as the accepted name.

Ephedra is a genus of gymnosperm shrubs. As of July 2025, 74 species, and two hybrids, are accepted. The species of Ephedra are widespread in many arid regions of the world, ranging across southwestern North America, southern Europe, northern Africa, southwest and central Asia, northern China, and western South America. It is the only extant genus in its family, Ephedraceae, and order, Ephedrales, and one of the three extant genera of the division Gnetophyta together with Gnetum and Welwitschia.

Ephedra

Dcrjsr · CC BY 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
Sits inside
EphedraceaePBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Streptophyta

Time the record covers

At most 11 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 48.07 Mya and 37.71 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Eocene — about 5 of 5 occurrencesEocene48–48 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences48–47 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences47–47 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences47–47 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences47–46 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences46–46 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences46–46 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences46–45 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences45–45 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences45–44 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences44–44 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences44–44 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences44–43 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences43–43 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences43–43 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences43–42 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences42–42 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences42–41 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences41–41 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences41–41 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences41–40 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences40–40 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences40–39 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences39–39 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences39–39 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences39–38 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences38–38 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences38–38 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences48.6 Mya37.2 Mya

5 occurrences of Ephedra on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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

5 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

2 formations

Lisbon — 31.56°N, 87.90°WLisbon — 31.52°N, 84.11°WKosciusko — 32.02°N, 88.70°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Ephedra has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Ephedra and its relatives

Eocene

Where Ephedra and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

1,001 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 93 sites for Ephedra, 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

1 reference

Each of the 5 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Ephedra

Credit
Dcrjsr
Licence
CC BY 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Ephedra 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

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 itEphedraceae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

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