Pictures by Hunter

     This one is kind of tricky. All flowers are plants, but not all plants are flowers. A plant can be anything from a mighty redwood tree to a puny shrub. All plants use photosynthesis to grow, and depend on the soil, rain, and sunlight for nutrients. Flowers are actually the reproductive organs of plants. When you refer to a rose, you usually mean the bright colorful petals, but there are many other parts of a rose plant, including the stem and roots.

    So, how does a plant become a fossil?   A plant dies.  It is covered with mud, silt, sand, or in some cases, volcanic ash.  The soft part of the plant rots.  The minerals in the mud, silt, sand, or volcanic ash turn the hard parts to rock.  Plants have been around for a long time.  During the Jurassic Period, plants like ferns, gingkoes, conifers, and cycads existed.  It took a little longer for flowering plants to appear, during the Cretaceous Period.  

To learn more about plant fossils, visit this site: 

http://www.museum.vic.gov.au/prehistoric/time/plant.html