Fossilized Garlic?

[Calebho]

From the collection of a retired Geology professor. It seems too perfect and completely unencumbered by sedimentary rock. Comments? I love it no matter what it turns out to be!

[Hoss]

Looks like one Roger posted in the past.

https://forums.arrowheads.com/forum/general-discussion-gc5/fossils-paleontology-old-bones-gc30/28834-fossilised-garlic-shrimp

[painshill]

Very interesting. Definitely looks like a plant bulb and could be allium sp. There's a possibility it could be a crinoid bulb (a marine animal resembling a plant) but I can't see any obvious features to support that. Could we see the 'bottom' please?

My specimen was from Borneo, which isn't a country but comprises territories belonging to Indonesia, Malaysia and the Sultanate of Brunei. The Indonesian portion is Kalimantan on the southern part of the island but mine came from Sabah, which is in the Malaysian northern part.

[flintguy]

That's a great post that Hoss linked Rodger. This was before my time here. Really enjoyed seeing it for the first time just now.

[SDhunter]

It does look like Roger’s fossil.

[Calebho]

Here is the bottom, thanks for asking. When I compare this "fossil" with the garlic shrimp fossil they seem qualitatively different to my untutored eyes. I am neither a paleontologist nor an anthropologist so looking at and interpreting fossils is not something I am accustomed to doing. My garlic seems so much more clearly defined and nearly perfect than the garlic shrimp that I wonder if it may be "too good to be true." If there are any readers with extensive experience in evaluating fossils, particularly in a professional sense, I would appreciate their evaluation of the authenticity as a fossil.

[painshill]

It's pretty difficult to tell if something is a genuine fossil from a photograph... as opposed to say a cement cast of the real thing that someone has made for novelty or deceitful purposes.

There's absolutely no reason why a fossil can't be recovered in a form that looks exactly as the item did in real life once the matrix has been cleaned from it. Sometimes that's really easy and takes nothing more than a a bit of brushing and some water. Fossils recovered from clays, mudstones and such can be extremely hard if they are silicified or calcited, whereas the matrix they sit within can be extremely soft and powdery such that it's easily removed.

I think you've got confused about the "garlic shrimp" references on my earlier thread. That was just a joke, The fossil collection I showed all came from the same formation but they represent different organisms. The first item is a shrimp fossil, but lacking the finer detail. The others are various unrelated plant fruits and bulbs, of which one appears to be an Allium, that's probably garlic. The Allium family includes two subspecies of garlic with about ten major groups of varieties, all of which have ancestral wild forms.

This was it, and I wouldn't regard it as 'lacking detail' or 'not clearly defined'.



Note that some of the other plant fossils had predation marks arising from the original plant being attacked by insect larvae prior to fossilisation. I see it on your specimen too, with what look like 'worm-holes'. Thanks for showing the bottom. It looks like what I would expect to see on the bottom of a plant bulb, not a crinoid bulb.

There's not much more that can be said from pictures alone. I would suggest you take it to a natural history museum and ask if they can help... but I forewarn you that fossils of this type are sufficiently rare that many museums have never seen them. It takes special conditions for 'soft' tissue to fossilise in 3-D form. Something like a plant bulb has a better chance since it has at least some cellular rigidity (versus say a soft fruit with a high water content). Other small 'fruits' with tough skins such as figs and palm fruits have a better chance still (like the ones I showed).

[Calebho]

Thank you so much for that clear and detailed reply!