300 million-year-old fern on display in Wolverhampton
Perfectly preserved in a case of ironstone, this 300 million year old fern is set to go on display at a Wolverhampton museum.
The fern is among a collection of more than 100 fossils from the former Parkfield Colliery site.
And this summer, the rare artefact will form part of a new exhibition called The Riches Beneath Us - The Black Country's Amazing Rocks, at Bantock House Museum.
Paul Quigley, curator of history and local studies for Wolverhampton museums, said the fern had been handed in to Bilston Library, which had passed it on to the museums.
"I don't think there's any record of how it would have been found. It may have been donated to the library by the company that was working the mine," he said.
"It is part of a collection of more than 100 fossils from what was the Parkfield Colliery site which used to be in Coseley before they re-drew the boundaries and it came to us via Bilston Library.
"It is 300 million years old and from the Carboniferous period.
"It is the end of a leaf that is fully into sediment and it has become incased in a nodule of ironstone, a mineral that was used in Black Country furnaces. It is two halves of a cast and it is the same fern in the middle."
The fern came to the attention of staff going through the collection ahead of the exhibition which starts in August.
Mr Quigley added: "The exhibition will be the biggest exhibition of geology that we have put on for a long time.
"There will be other bits and pieces that have come from that site. It is an important geological site because most fossils are bones or shells. It is quite rare to find soft tissue and this fern is an example."
The Riches Beneath Us - The Black Country's Amazing Rocks runs from August 14 until mid-November in the Community Gallery at Bantock House Museum.
The exhibition will be the latest at the museum which is currently hosting a display on the Black Country art of enamelling.
Intricate enamelled objects – created by Tettenhall-based craftsman John Grayson – are currently on display alongside masks from hit TV show Spitting Image as part of 'Georgian enamels - a new narrative' which will run at the museum until August.
