Myrtaceae

Myrtaceae, the myrtle family, is a family of dicotyledonous plants placed within the order Myrtales. Myrtle, pōhutukawa, bay rum tree, clove, guava, acca (feijoa), allspice, and eucalyptus are some notable members of this group. All species are woody, contain essential oils, and have flower parts in multiples of four or five. The leaves are evergreen, alternate to mostly opposite, simple, and usually entire. The flowers have a base number of five petals, though in several genera, the petals are minute or absent. The stamens are usually very conspicuous, brightly coloured, and numerous.

Myrtaceae

Uncredited · Public Domain · 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
myrtlePBDB
Sits inside
MyrtalesPBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Angiospermae

Time the record covers

At least 100 million years on record.

The record covers at least 100.5 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 121.4 Mya to 0 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 5 of 589 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 22 of 589 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 22 of 589 occurrencesEocene — about 92 of 589 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 33 of 589 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 63 of 589 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 11 of 589 occurrencesPleistocene — about 324 of 589 occurrences124–120 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences120–116 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences116–111 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences111–107 Mya — about 1 occurrence107–103 Mya — about 1 occurrence103–99 Mya — about 2 occurrences99–95 Mya — about 3 occurrences95–91 Mya — about 2 occurrences91–87 Mya — about 2 occurrences87–83 Mya — about 2 occurrences83–78 Mya — about 3 occurrences78–74 Mya — about 3 occurrences74–70 Mya — about 3 occurrences70–66 Mya — about 3 occurrences66–62 Mya — about 8 occurrences62–58 Mya — about 8 occurrences58–54 Mya — about 23 occurrences54–50 Mya — about 29 occurrences50–45 Mya — about 16 occurrences45–41 Mya — about 8 occurrences41–37 Mya — about 11 occurrences37–33 Mya — about 14 occurrences33–29 Mya — about 12 occurrences29–25 Mya — about 13 occurrences25–21 Mya — about 16 occurrences21–17 Mya — about 19 occurrences17–12 Mya — about 18 occurrences12–8.3 Mya — about 10 occurrences8.3–4.1 Mya — about 9 occurrences4.1–0 Mya — about 348 occurrences100.5 Mya11.7 ka124 Mya0 Mya

589 occurrences of Myrtaceae on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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

589 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

60 formations

Huitrera — 42.50°S, 70.00°WMorwell — 38.23°S, 146.62°ESan José — 26.86°S, 65.71°WSan José — 27.01°S, 65.66°WSan José — 26.68°S, 65.83°WSan José — 26.71°S, 66.02°WLondon Clay — 50.78°N, 0.65°WLondon Clay — 51.37°N, 1.13°ELondon Clay — 50.93°N, 1.48°WLondon Clay — 51.40°N, 0.83°EDeccan Intertrappean — 23.11°N, 80.61°EDeccan Intertrappean — 22.01°N, 79.19°EDeccan Intertrappean — 22.75°N, 81.10°EDeccan Intertrappean — 22.73°N, 80.39°EGreen River — 39.78°N, 107.87°WGreen River — 39.00°N, 110.10°WGreen River — 39.00°N, 110.00°WBlack Creek — 34.55°N, 80.13°WBlack Creek — 33.85°N, 80.55°WBlack Creek — 33.53°N, 81.83°WBlack Creek — 34.26°N, 79.76°WFort Union — 46.91°N, 101.44°WFort Union — 47.22°N, 104.67°WFort Union — 43.70°N, 104.70°WFort Union — 43.93°N, 108.65°WGatun — 9.27°N, 79.87°WKrivorechenskaya — 64.48°N, 168.92°EYallourn — 38.22°S, 146.56°ERelu — 30.07°N, 100.30°ETuscaloosa — 33.61°N, 87.74°WTuscaloosa — 33.12°N, 87.67°WTuscaloosa — 33.17°N, 87.43°WOlduvai — 2.96°S, 35.31°ESan Sebastian — 18.37°N, 66.19°WFlorissant — 38.92°N, 105.25°WRipley — 32.38°N, 84.44°WRipley — 36.23°N, 88.20°WRipley — 35.38°N, 88.40°WLiuqu — 29.17°N, 87.75°EMenshi — 32.17°N, 79.97°EBovey Tracey Lignite — 50.58°N, 3.68°WCulebra — 9.03°N, 79.63°WWoolwich — 51.52°N, 0.08°WDawson Arkose — 39.22°N, 104.22°WDawson Arkose — 39.12°N, 104.17°WMata Amarilla — 49.65°S, 71.22°W

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The named rock units Myrtaceae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 36 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 414 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Myrtaceae and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Myrtaceae and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

2,759 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 224 sites for Myrtaceae, and this reads all of them. Of that, one read hit the database's own return limit, so every count below is a floor rather than a total. 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

100 references

Each of the 589 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. 88 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 content1

Picture of Myrtaceae

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Myrtaceae 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 itMyrtales through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. de Jussieu 1789