Phytoliths: The Storytelling Stones Inside Plants

By Thomas C. Hart

These microscopic structures, which arise from silica present in plant tissues, are finding a wide variety of uses, from archaeology to forensics.

This Article From Issue

March-April 2015

Volume 103, Number 2

Page 136

DOI: 10.1511/2015.113.136

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Charles Darwin’s voyage aboard the Beagle is legendary in the history of science, and yet one of his notable observations is barely known. Before he glimpsed some of the finches that would bear his name and provide the inspiration for the theory of natural selection, he was one of the first scientists to remark on the uniqueness of microscopic silica bodies called phytoliths.

Phytoliths, each only some tens of micrometers long, are all that remain of plants that existed about 40 million years ago. These structures, which plants form from silica taken up with water from the soil, show such a diversity of shapes that often they can be used to identify specific plants. These fossil phytoliths were taken from the Sarmiento Formation in Chubut, Argentina.

Image courtesy of C.A.E. Strömberg and R.E. Dunn.

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