the steel grey limestone panel with a large bouquet of fossilised stalked sea lilies with their long rods attached to their densely tentacled calyxes

Crinoids, relatives of sea urchins and starfish, appeared more than 500 million years ago. Despite its deceptively simple common name, the sea lily was in fact an unusual creature attached to the bottom of the seas. The present specimen is composed of the stalked crinoids with long rods attached to their tentacled calyxes that once filtered food particles from the currents flowing past them. This elegant bouquet of sea lilies is a significant example of extraordinary quality that visualises the meadows or forests they used to comprise during the Paleozoic era. Excavated in Morocco, these sea lilies are finely preserved against the backdrop of steel grey limestone stone formed in the depths of the prehistoric era.