On the fifteenth night of the seventh month, many Chinese celebrate the Hungry Ghost Festival to perform rituals to remember the spirits of the dead. Ghosts and other supernatural creatures emerged from the underworld to wander among the living. Perhaps this ghost surfaced on this date to remind us that the underworld consist of creatures beyond just humans. This is a beautiful and rare specimen. Fossils have been appreciated as viewing stones in China for at least 1,000 years. 

Long ago, perhaps thousands of years, a branch broke from a tree and fell into the waters of a river that carried it into limestone cave in the southwestern Chinese province of Guangxi. Calcium carbonate was slowly deposited on the branch and leaves until a thick carbonate coating was all that remained. This is essential a cast of those leaves and branch. The undersides of several leaves are shown here. The prominent veins spread in a pinnate arrangement from the central vein of each leaf. This fossil is 23 cm wide, 11.5 cm high, and 13.6 cm deep and is in the collection of Thomas S. Elias and Hiromi Nakaoji.