Crassulaceae
The Crassulaceae, also known as the crassulas, the stonecrops or the orpine family, are a diverse family of flowering plants primarily characterized by succulent leaves and a form of photosynthesis known as crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM), in which plants photosynthesize in the daytime and exchange gases during the cooler temperatures of the night. The blossoms of crassulas generally have five floral parts. Crassulaceae are usually herbaceous, though there are some subshrubs, and relatively few trees or aquatic plants.

Nadiatalent · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- SaxifragalesPBDB
- Diet
- "photoautotroph"PBDB, for Angiospermae
Time the record covers
At least 2.5 million years on record.
The record covers at least 2.58 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 23.04 Mya to 0 Mya.
3 occurrences of Crassulaceae on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
3 occurrences- Miocene29%
- Pliocene4%
- Pleistocene33%
- Holocene33%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
1 formation
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The named rock units Crassulaceae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Crassulaceae and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Crassulaceae and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
66 taxa- Chenopodiaceae3 sites
- Cyperaceae3 sites
- Ericaceae3 sites
- Poaceae3 sites
- Quercus3 sites
- Alnus2 sites
- Apiaceae2 sites
- Artemisia2 sites
- Asteraceae2 sites
- Betula2 sites
- Ephedra2 sites
- Olea2 sites
- Pinus2 sites
- Plantago2 sites
- Ranunculaceae2 sites
- Abies1 site
- Aizoaceae1 site
- Amaranthaceae1 site
- Anthospermum1 site
- Arecaceae1 site
- Aster1 site
- Brassicaceae1 site
- Bupleurum1 site
- Capparidaceae1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Crassulaceae, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
3 references- Site U13871
- Pollen evidence for vegetational and climatic change in Southern Africa during the Neogene and Quaternary1
- A Catalogue of Fossil Plants from India Part 6: Cenozoic (Quaternary) Palynology and Palaeobotany1
Each of the 3 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Crassulaceae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Nadiatalent
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Crassulaceae was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itSaxifragales through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Saint-Hilaire 1805