The study of fossil plants. Fossil plants are rarely found as one entire unit; the seed may be many miles away from its source, so too the leaf, and stems can be found in disparate environments far from the source plant. This pattern of fossilization can make it hard to be sure whether a particular leaf or seed came from the same plant or two different ones. This has led to the use of form genera (scientific name referring to ichnofossils, or parts of fossil organisms, that can't reliably be assigned to a specific taxon) to identify individual plant parts by shape and structure, rather than taxonomic affinity. One plant may be composed of several different form genera, and one form genus may be found on several different plants.

An area of paleontology involving the study of past plant life.

The branch of botany that studies the plants that existed in former geological periods, chiefly by studying fossils.

the branch of paleontology dealing with fossil plants. [AHDOS

Paleobotany (from the Greek words paleon = old and botanikos = of herbs) is the branch of paleontology dealing with the recovery and identification of plant remains from geological contexts, and their use in the reconstruction of past environments and the history of life. A closely related field is palynology, the study of fossil and extant spores and pollen. Paleobotany includes the study of terrestrial plant fossils, as well as the study of marine autotrophs, such as algae.