A eudicot from the Early Cretaceous of China

Leefructus mirus from a 125.8–122.6 Ma bed in the Lower Yixian Formation preserves deeply trilobate leaves and an axillary reproductive axis ending in five long, narrow, partly united carpels, supporting an Early Cretaceous eudicot assignment without fixing Ranunculaceae affinity or the global eudicot first appearance.

Leefructus mirus is diagnosed as a basal eudicot from the Early Cretaceous Yixian Formation, while a separate 83-plastid-gene analysis resolves selected living early eudicot branches; neither result is a literal ancestor sequence.

The fossil locality represented in this profile is the Daxinfangzi bed of the Yixian Formation in northeastern China; one dated locality does not establish a eudicot origin centre or global distribution.

Leefructus preserves vegetative and reproductive plant material, supporting only a bounded primary-producer context for the sampled fossil; its habitat and any class-wide eudicot ecology remain unresolved.

Leefructus mirus from the Yixian Formation has deeply three-lobed leaves grouped at nodes and an axillary reproductive axis ending in five narrow, partly united carpels. These are features of the described fossil, not a universal eudicot body plan.

Eudicotyledones is displayed at 125.8–0 Ma only as a radiometrically bounded Leefructus-sample-to-living navigation anthology: the fossil supports basal-eudicot presence but does not establish the exact global FAD, crown divergence or continuous occupancy.