India, Nov. 27 -- The Government of India has issued a release:
Among the silt-rich deposits of the Chirang River in Manipur's Imphal Valley researchers examining fossil plant remains have found an astonishingly intact bamboo stem, carrying the ghostly marks of long-vanished thorns. This earliest thorny bamboo fossil from Asia could rewrite a chapter of the continent's botanical history.
Bamboo fossils are extremely rare because their hollow stems and fibrous tissues decay rapidly, leaving little trace in the geological record. Scientists usually understood bamboo defences mainly by comparing modern species with their habitats.
Scientists from Birbal Sahni institution of Palaeosciences (BSIP), an autonomous institute of the Department of...