Welcome to the Paleobotany Project! This website contains over 1000 images of fossil plants spanning the late Cretaceous through early Eocene from the Western Interior of North America. We add new images on a regular basis.

The leaves are organized into categories (called bins) based on leaf characteristics that represent the full spectrum of leaf morphology. The character states that define the dicot bins are described more completely in the Manual of Leaf Architecture by Ellis et al. 2009. An excel spreadsheet which accompanies the Manual is available here for download.

The images and data found in the Paleobotany Project are copyrighted by the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. If you wish to make use of the collections, please contact Logan Ivy, collections manager (Logan.Ivy@dmns.org).

For questions about Paleobotanical Research at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, please contact:

Dr. Ian Miller, Curator of Paleobotany (Ian.Miller@dmns.org)
Dr. Kirk Johnson, Vice President and Chief Curator (Kirk.Johnson@dmns.org)
Beth Ellis, Research Scientist (Beth.Ellis@dmns.org)