This family has been estimated to be anywhere from 105 to at least 35 million years ago. Being one of few angiosperms forming persistent tetrads with prominent sculpturing, pollen of Winteraceae is rare but easy to identify in the fossil record. Pollen samples found in Gabon may indicate that the family is at least 120 million years old, but the association of these fossils with Winteraceae is uncertain. Oldest unambiguous Winteraceae fossils are from the middle to late Albian of Israel (~110 million years old; described as "Qatanipollis"). Pollen fossils indicate that the range has been much wider than it is now, reaching north as far as Greenland during the Paleocene (Danian), and disappearing from continental Africa (Cape Peninsula, South Africa) in the Miocene. Equally characteristic is Winteraceae wood, which lacks xylem vessels in contrast to most other flowering plants. Fossil Winteraceae wood has been found in the Late Cretaceous to Paleogene (c. 85–35 million years ago) of Antarctica (Santonian-Campanian), western North America (Central Valley, California; Maastrichian) and Europe (Helmstedt, Germany; Eocene).