The fossil species has been found in Middle Paleocene to Early Oligocene sediments of North America and China.

The fruit is a rounded samara containing two compressed nutlets, flat, encircled by a broad wing which turns from light green to red with ripening.

[3] The extinct species Dipteronia brownii is known from Middle Paleocene to Early Oligocene sites across western North America.

During the middle to late Eocene the species spread east and south to the Ruby Basin Flora of Montana and the Florissant Formation of Colorado, while the last occurrences are in the Early Oligocene, Rupelian[5] of the Bridge Creek Flora in the upper John Day Formation.

[2] Concurrently, several Dipteronia brownii fruits have also been collected from Rupelian 32 ± 1 million years ago lacustrine mudstones in Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture southwestern China.