2025 in paleobotany
2025 in paleobotany GudangMovies21 Rebahinxxi LK21
This paleobotany list records new fossil plant taxa that were to be described during the year 2025, as well as notes other significant paleobotany discoveries and events which occurred during 2025.
Algae
= Chlorophytes
=Lycophytes
Ferns and fern allies
Conifers
= Pinaceae
== Podocarpaceae
=Flowering plants
= Monocots
=Monocot research
Evidence from the study of phytoliths from the Giraffe locality (Northwest Territories, Canada), indicative of presence of palms close to the Arctic Circle over an extensive period of time during the Eocene (approximately 48 million years ago), is presented by Siver et al. (2025).
= Basal eudicots
== Superasterids
=Apiales
Icacinales
= Superrosids
=Fabales
Superrosid research
Hazra & Khan (2025) report the discovery of a diverse assemblage of legume fruits and leaflet remains from the Rajdanda Formation (India), interpreted as evidence of the presence of a warm and humid tropical environment during the Pliocene.
= General angiosperm research
=Doughty et al. (2025) use a mechanistic model to study the relationship between seed size of flowering plants, their light environment and the size of animals in their environment, and predict a rapid increase of seed size during the Paleocene that eventually plateaued or declined, likely as a result of the appearance of large herbivores that opened the understory, reducing the competitive advantage of plants with large seeds.
Other plants
= Other plant research
=Partial leaf representing the first record of a fossil Cycas from Australia is described from the Miocene Stuarts Creek site by Greenwood, Conran & West (2025).
Palynology
= Palynological research
=Nhamutole et al. (2025) study the composition of palynological assemblages from the Permian (Lopingian) strata of the Maniamba Basin (Mozambique), reporting evidence of the presence of plants indicative of lowland fluvial setting.
Evidence from the study of palynofloral assemblages from the Germig Section (Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau; Tibet, China), interpreted as indicative of a shift from floras dominated by seed ferns and conifers to floras dominated by cheirolepids during the Triassic-Jurassic transition, is presented by Li et al. (2025).
A study on palynofloral assemblages from the Las Loras UNESCO Global Geopark (Spain), providing evidence of gradual shift from conifer-dominated floras to ones with increased presence of flowering plants through the Albian–Cenomanian, is published by Rodríguez-Barreiro et al. (2025).
Evidence from the study of palynomorph and palynofacies from the Bahariya Formation (Egypt), interpreted as indicative of warm and humid climate during the early-middle Cenomanian with a short episode of semi-arid to arid conditions during the late early Cenomanian, is presented by Abdelhalim et al. (2025).
Rull (2025) revises purported fossil pollen records of Pelliciera found outside the Neotropics, and argues that only a subset of Cenozoic pollen records from tropical West Africa can be confirmed as likely fossils of members of Pelliciera.
General research
Evidence of the presence of a plant community dominated by ferns belonging to the family Osmundaceae, similar to extant plant communities such as those from swamp settings from the Parana Forest in northeastern Argentina, is reported from the Jurassic La Matilde Formation (Argentina) by García Massini et al. (2025).
Silva et al. (2025) study the taphonomy of exceptionally preserved plant remains from the Upper Cretaceous Santa Marta Formation (Antarctica).
Evidence from the study of phytoliths from the Lunpola Basin of the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau, interpreted as indicative of presence mixed coniferous and broad-leaved forest during the late Oligocene–Early Miocene, is presented by Zhang et al. (2025).
A study on ancient DNA from sediment cores from lakes in Alaska and Siberia, providing evidence of plant extinctions associated with environmental changes during the Pleistocene–Holocene transition, is published by Courtin et al. (2025).