A new fossil discovery sheds new light on a 47-million-year-old "alien plant" species that is the only example ever found of its kind.

A "strange" prehistoric plant species is the lone representative of a mysterious group of organisms that no longer exists, scientists have discovered. The first evidence of the species—in the form of fossilized leaves—came to light in eastern Utah in 1969.

The discovery of new fossils reveals that a species first found in 1969 is not a member of the ginseng family, as scientists had initially speculated. Rather, the entire family of the newly named Othniophyton elongatum is extinct,

A peculiar cluster of fossils was retrieved from the Green River Formation in Utah back in 1969 – the 47-million-year-old leaves of an “alien plant” that was thought to be an unusual member of the ginseng family.