The Palaeoflora Database - Documentation and Data

The Palaeoflora database has been designed to provide essential information about fossil taxa, their related nearest living relatives (NLRs), and their climatic requirements. The database was established in 1990 to foster quantitative palaeoclimate reconstructions and has been continually growing, as well as being updated and corrected on a regular basis. As of March 2024, Palaeoflora includes ca. 7000 macrobotanical and 3300 microbotanical taxa, and ca. 1900 modern taxonomical units (species, genera, families) for which climate data are available.

The NLR concept proposed in the Palaeoflora refers to published palaeobotanical literature resources and kind advice of numerous colleagues. Being maintained in the context of the international scientific network NECLIME (www.neclime.de), Palaeoflora profits immensely from co-operations and the activities within NECLIME, especially of the working groups on palynology and plant macrofossils. Climatic ranges for extant plant taxa in the Palaeoflora Database are mainly based on records of meteorological stations located within the plant distribution area of the respective taxon and refer to a global context. Climate data of the Palaeoflora database are most suitable to reconstruct past regional climates based on palaeobotanical records.