The Origin and Evolution of Angiosperms

Homepage Mono/ Polyphyletic origins Terrestrial/ Aquatic origins Euanthial/ palaeoherb? Purported Triassic angiosperms Mid Cretaceous radiation Environmental considerations Coevolution with insects Coevolution with dinosaurs

Darwin's abominable mystery As if from nowhere, angiosperms appear in the fossil record from some 130 million years ago at the beginning of the Cretaceous, many extremely well preserved and showing clear flowers. This leads to an assumption (not accepted until the 1970’s) that a large amount of evolution had to occur before this point to produce the flowers in the first place. The origins are under debate, but the radiation is widely accepted: over a relatively short space of time, a massive diversification event had taken place. By the early part of the end of the Cretaceous, many of the lineages we recognise today were represented.

A magnolia - supposedly one of the most primitive living angiosperms