Fossil Plant Garden - Gainesville, FL
N 29° 38.148 W 082° 22.185
17R E 367404 N 3279213
The Fossil Plant Garden is located at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the University of Florida campus in Gainesville, Florida, USA.
Waymark Code: WM34YP
Location: Florida, United States
Date Posted: 02/10/2008
Views: 42
The following information is found on the Florida Museum of Natural History's webpage about the Fossil Plant Garden
(visit link):
The Florida Museum of Natural History formally dedicated its fossil plant garden June 10, 1999, with the help of about 280 museum members and their families.
The garden, designed by museum staff member Jay Fowler, is landscaped with modern species of plants whose ancestors lived millions of years ago and are preserved as fossils in many places around the world. Man-made concrete impressions in the garden walkway, located south of the main entrance to Powell Hall, resemble fossil plant imprints preserved in rocks.
Some of the garden's plants have ancestors that lived 15 to 425 million years ago and the oldest were among the first land plants. These ancient species were food for the earliest land animals. Many of the plants have ancestors that lived 150 million years ago, during the Age of Dinosaurs. The plants in the garden include mosses, sago and sabal palms, saw palmetto, east and west coast coontie, ginkgo biloba and an 18-million-year-old fossil cypress tree. The Florida Museum of Natural History gratefully acknowledges the Florida Geological Survey in Tallahassee for its generous donation of this fossil tree.