Deadly beauty: Amber-entombed flower, 20 million years old, may have been toxic

Do not let its beauty fool you. A newly identified and exquisitely preserved flower found entombed in amber - fossilised tree sap - may have packed quite a punch.

Scientists announced on Monday the discovery of the flower that lived 20 million to 30 million years ago, named Strychnos electri, inside amber dug out of the side of a mountain in the Dominican Republic.

It was a member of a group of flowers that are today the source of the poisons strychnine and curare. According to the researchers, it also likely boasted toxic compounds.

The scientists found two examples of the small tubular-shaped flower, measuring roughly 1cm long, in the tan-colored amber, and were amazed at the remarkable state of preservation, among the best of any fossil flower.

“These amber pieces are like time capsules, a frozen moment of life that we can now relive and study,” Rutgers University botanist Lena Struwe said. “The flower is incredibly well-preserved, not distorted, not compressed, not fragmented into pieces, but looks like it just fell off its branch and dropped into sticky resin.”

The flowers lived in a tropical, humid forest alongside a variety of trees, shrubs, grasses and climbing vines, said Oregon State University entomologist and amber expert George Poinar.