Scientists in China have found the oldest flower bud in the fossil record, aligning the fossil evidence with the genetic data suggesting flowering plants, or angiosperms, evolved tens of millions of years earlier than we initially thought.
The team hopes that their discovery will help toease the pain of the mystery that Charles Darwin once called "abominable".
If the oldest unambiguous fossil flower is no older than 130 million years old, how come angiosperms began to dominate 30 million years later? How did they evolve such a great diversity so quickly?
It was a puzzle that bothered Darwin, but he never found the answers he wanted. Some important pieces have fallen into place in the past few years.
Scientists in China discovered a flower that is more than 140 million years old.
The plant, called Euanthus, had petals, but also male and female reproductive parts, as well as a leafy bit at the base of a bud.
In China, a flower called Nanjinganthus was found to be 174 million years old. Its seeds were completely enclosed in an ovary, like a modern flowering plant.
Some people are not sure if these are true angiosperms. Some argue that these plants are too primitive to be considered flowers, while others think their structures are too complex for a gymnosperm, an older type of plant with unenclosed seeds and lacking a flower.
Researchers have been looking for a transitional stage for the new flower bud. It was found at a deposit that was more than 160 million years old.
The stem of the plant is connected to a flower bud, a fruit and a branch, which is rare. The arrow points to the flower bud, while the top right shows the fruiting body, and the bottom right shows the bud.
The word jurassica is derived from the Latin word for "florgerminis." There is a system called theNI GPAS.
Because flowers are so delicate, they are hard to find in fossils. An "unbroken record of failure" has been described by previous attempts to uncover the origin of flowering plants.
F. jurassica is a unique discovery. There is no flower bud with an intact flower.
The fruit on F. jurassica adds more support to the idea that this is an early angiosperm.
The authors think their results demand a rethinking of angiosperm evolution, but there will be some experts who disagree.
The study was published in a journal.
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