Flowering Plants May Be 100 Million Years Older Than Thought

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Interesting shit. Brings out the botanist in me.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/24331982

[Pappa]

Bloody scientists! Always findin' stuff out!!!1!

[Horwood Beer-Master]

Bear in mind when they say 'flowering plant', that it may very not have possessed anything that would remotely resemble what you typically think of as a 'flower'.

All pollen alone can do is allow them to classify the plant concerned as an angiosperm (or at least as being more closely related to the angiosperms than to any other extant group - how they could be more precise than that I'm not certain).

[Thinking Aloud]

That would make my compost heap 100 million years older than I thought too, then.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Bear in mind when they say 'flowering plant', that it may very not have possessed anything that would remotely resemble what you typically think of as a 'flower'.

All pollen alone can do is allow them to classify the plant concerned as an angiosperm (or at least as being more closely related to the angiosperms than to any other extant group - how they could be more precise than that I'm not certain).

When a botanist says "flowering plant" they mean angiosperm (and are usually talking to a non-botanist!) Whether it has anything a gardener would recognise as a flower is irrelevant - the main distinction is that it has seeds enclosed in an ovary.

[Tyrannical]

No mention of insects? Insects are supposed have led to the evolution of flowering plants I thought.

[Pappa]

No mention of insects? Insects are supposed have led to the evolution of flowering plants I thought.

I expect pollen was wind-borne prior to insect-attracting flowers evolving.

[Horwood Beer-Master]

Bear in mind when they say 'flowering plant', that it may very not have possessed anything that would remotely resemble what you typically think of as a 'flower'.

All pollen alone can do is allow them to classify the plant concerned as an angiosperm (or at least as being more closely related to the angiosperms than to any other extant group - how they could be more precise than that I'm not certain).

When a botanist says "flowering plant" they mean angiosperm (and are usually talking to a non-botanist!) Whether it has anything a gardener would recognise as a flower is irrelevant - the main distinction is that it has seeds enclosed in an ovary.

But can we even know that in this case? All we know is that we have pollen that's almost identical to other pollen belonging to later plants that we know did enclose their seeds in an ovary.

That's enough to prove a relationship between the two, but is it enough to prove that the earlier plant had those characteristic's that the later one did that we would categorise as making it an angiosperm.

I guess what I'm asking is might not a 'pre-angiosperm' angiosperm-relation have produced very similar pollen to an early bona-fide angiosperm?


Not that the discovery of a confirmed pre-angiosperm angiosperm-relation wouldn't be an awesome thing in itself.

[Tyrannical]

No mention of insects? Insects are supposed have led to the evolution of flowering plants I thought.

I expect pollen was wind-borne prior to insect-attracting flowers evolving.

Pollen, but not flowers. Flowers were have supposed to have evolved to attract pollinating insects.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Bear in mind when they say 'flowering plant', that it may very not have possessed anything that would remotely resemble what you typically think of as a 'flower'.

All pollen alone can do is allow them to classify the plant concerned as an angiosperm (or at least as being more closely related to the angiosperms than to any other extant group - how they could be more precise than that I'm not certain).

When a botanist says "flowering plant" they mean angiosperm (and are usually talking to a non-botanist!) Whether it has anything a gardener would recognise as a flower is irrelevant - the main distinction is that it has seeds enclosed in an ovary.

But can we even know that in this case? All we know is that we have pollen that's almost identical to other pollen belonging to later plants that we know did enclose their seeds in an ovary.

That's enough to prove a relationship between the two, but is it enough to prove that the earlier plant had those characteristic's that the later one did that we would categorise as making it an angiosperm.

I guess what I'm asking is might not a 'pre-angiosperm' angiosperm-relation have produced very similar pollen to an early bona-fide angiosperm?


Not that the discovery of a confirmed pre-angiosperm angiosperm-relation wouldn't be an awesome thing in itself.

This is possible. All the pollen shows is that the mutation(s) that reduced the contents of the pollen grain to 3 cells had occurred. However, this is hugely tied into the usual angiosperm model of fertilisation and seed development. One of these cells becomes the pollen tube, the other 2 are sperms, one of which fertilises the egg, the other combines with a double-nucleus cell in the female gametophyte to produce endosperm, (technically a separate organism!) which acts as a food source for the developing seed in many species.

The exciting thing about this discovery is that now botanists will have loads of fun devising possible alternate mechanisms for the development of angiosperms. This will provide the basis of research for decades to come.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

No mention of insects? Insects are supposed have led to the evolution of flowering plants I thought.

I expect pollen was wind-borne prior to insect-attracting flowers evolving.

Pollen, but not flowers. Flowers were have supposed to have evolved to attract pollinating insects.

Large, showy, colourful flowers, certainly. But the flowers of many angiosperms, especially grasses and several trees, are designed for wind-pollination. Ask my hayfever if you want to know more!

[Audley Strange]

What kind of thought? Certainly no human thought, but were there no organisms with any sentience at all 100 million years ago?

[Xamonas Chegwé]

What kind of thought? Certainly no human thought, but were there no organisms with any sentience at all 100 million years ago?

My original thread title ended with "...than previously thought" but it was too long and unwanted ambiguity was added along with the necessary brevity.

[JimC]

No mention of insects? Insects are supposed have led to the evolution of flowering plants I thought.

I expect pollen was wind-borne prior to insect-attracting flowers evolving.

Pollen, but not flowers. Flowers were have supposed to have evolved to attract pollinating insects.

Large, showy, colourful flowers, certainly. But the flowers of many angiosperms, especially grasses and several trees, are designed for wind-pollination. Ask my hayfever if you want to know more!

Do the folk in the know in this area think that the first angiosperms were wind-pollinated, and that flowers came later?

That would seem logical...

[Xamonas Chegwé]

No mention of insects? Insects are supposed have led to the evolution of flowering plants I thought.

I expect pollen was wind-borne prior to insect-attracting flowers evolving.

Pollen, but not flowers. Flowers were have supposed to have evolved to attract pollinating insects.

Large, showy, colourful flowers, certainly. But the flowers of many angiosperms, especially grasses and several trees, are designed for wind-pollination. Ask my hayfever if you want to know more!

Do the folk in the know in this area think that the first angiosperms were wind-pollinated, and that flowers came later?

That would seem logical...

I would phrase it that the first angiosperms were wind-pollinated and that insect-attracting flowers came later. The flowers were always there. It makes sense (and is widely accepted) that the explosion in variety and dominance of angiosperms came about due to their ability to attract insects (and later other animals) and so coincided with the appearance of land animals. Prior to this, they were just one more class of plants relying on wind-pollination. What this study has shown, however, is that they existed alongside the dominant tree-ferns, cycads and gymnosperms for far longer than previously thought.