• Premise of the study: The clade Bombacoideae+ Malvoideae ('Malvatheca group'sensu
Baum et al.) in Malvaceae comprises a mostly tropical lineage with derived taxa that now
thrive in higher latitudes. The sparse fossil record, especially for Malvoideae, obscures
interpretations of past distributions. We describe fossil leaves of Malvoideae from the middle‐
late Paleocene Cerrejón Formation in Colombia, which contains evidence for the earliest
known neotropical rainforest.• Methods: Fifty‐six leaf compressions belonging to Malvaceae …

• Conclusions: The leaf compressions, the oldest fossils for Eumalvoideae, indicate a
minimum divergence time of 58–60 Ma, older than existing estimates from molecular
analyses of living species. The abundance of eumalvoid leaves and of bombacoid pollen in
the midlate Paleocene of Colombia suggests that the Malvatheca group (Malvoideae+
Bombacoideae) was already a common element in neotropical forests and does not support
an Australasian origin for Eumalvoideae.