Paleobotany is the scientific study of ancient plants. Paleobotanists learn what plants were like long ago from fossils found in sedimentary rocks. These fossils can be impressions or compressions of the plants left on the rock’s surface, or “petrified” objects, such as wood, which preserve the original plant material in rocklike form. Still, other specimens are found in calcified lumps called coal balls, so named because they are usually found in or near coal deposits. The Paleobotany collection contains over 1,400 specimens mainly from Idaho, spanning the time period from the Precambrian Period to the Pleistocene Epoch.
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