Sparganium

Sparganium (bur-reed) is a genus of flowering plants, described as a genus by Linnaeus in 1753. It is widespread in wet areas in temperate regions of both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. The plants are perennial marsh plants that can grow to 3.5 m (11 ft), depending on the species, with epicene flowers.

Sparganium

Kurt Stüber [1] · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
Also called
bur-reedPBDB
Sits inside
SparganiaceaePBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Angiospermae

Time the record covers

At least 100 million years on record.

The record covers at least 100.5 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 113.2 Mya to 0 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 2 of 203 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 5 of 203 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 7 of 203 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 8 of 203 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 37 of 203 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 103 of 203 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 16 of 203 occurrencesPleistocene — about 24 of 203 occurrences115–112 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences112–108 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences108–104 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences104–100 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences100–96 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences96–92 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences92–89 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences89–85 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences85–81 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences81–77 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences77–73 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences73–69 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences69–65 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences65–62 Mya — about 2 occurrences62–58 Mya — about 2 occurrences58–54 Mya — about 4 occurrences54–50 Mya — about 3 occurrences50–46 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences46–42 Mya — about 1 occurrence42–38 Mya — about 1 occurrence38–35 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences35–31 Mya — about 4 occurrences31–27 Mya — about 7 occurrences27–23 Mya — about 26 occurrences23–19 Mya — about 6 occurrences19–15 Mya — about 11 occurrences15–12 Mya — about 48 occurrences12–7.7 Mya — about 24 occurrences7.7–3.8 Mya — about 19 occurrences3.8–0 Mya — about 37 occurrences100.5 Mya129 ka115 Mya0 Mya

203 occurrences of Sparganium on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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

203 occurrences

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

15 formations

Golden Valley — 45.50°N, 103.25°WGolden Valley — 47.98°N, 102.05°WGolden Valley — 46.98°N, 102.05°WGolden Valley — 47.17°N, 102.83°WGolden Valley — 47.08°N, 102.83°WFort Union — 47.10°N, 104.72°WFort Union — 48.40°N, 109.27°WFort Union — 46.87°N, 105.44°WFort Union — 47.40°N, 103.25°WAspen Shale — 42.09°N, 110.51°WAspen Shale — 42.08°N, 110.16°Wodderup — 54.93°N, 10.27°EProtection — 49.00°N, 124.00°WSanta Maria di Ciciliano — 42.65°N, 12.49°ESepulcher — 44.00°N, 110.00°WHaughton — 75.41°N, 89.43°WMiddlegate — 39.25°N, 117.88°WComox — 49.75°N, 125.00°WCoalmont — 40.73°N, 106.28°WIren Dabasu — 43.53°N, 111.73°EEyre — 29.50°S, 137.52°EGuchengzi — 41.84°N, 123.90°EDeccan Intertrappean — 22.01°N, 79.19°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Sparganium has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 176 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Sparganium and its relatives

Miocene

Where Sparganium and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

1,015 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 54 sites for Sparganium, 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

34 references

Each of the 203 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. 22 further references are not listed. 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 Sparganium

Credit
Kurt Stüber [1]
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Sparganium was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itSparganiaceae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1753