Article References
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New fossils upend catastrophist narrative that flowering plants …
Flowering plants, or angiosperms, now dominate Earth’s flora, but biologists thought they truly took off only after an asteroid impact 66 million years ago. A ‘botanical Pompeii’ containing fossilized seeds and fruits shows they prospered 10 million years earlier.
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Fossil fruits show flowering plants flourished in time of dinosaurs
Large fruits and seeds buried under volcanic ash nearly 75 million years ago upend the idea that flowering plants only came to prominence after the Cretaceous mass extinction
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'Botanical Pompeii' shows plants thrived before dinosaur extinction
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'Botanical Pompeii' shows plants thrived before dinosaur extinction
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‘Botanical Pompeii’ shows plants thrived before dinosaur extinction
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Cretaceous Seeds Shine Light on the Evolution of Flowering Plants
What you are looking at here are some of the earliest fossil remains of flowering plants. … In all instances, the embryos within the seeds were small, immature, and dormant. This suggests that seed dormancy is a fundamental trait of flowering plants.
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Fossils suggest flowers originated 50 million years earlier than thought
The discovery in China of fossil specimens of a flower called Nanjinganthus from the Early Jurassic shakes up widely accepted theories of plant evolution.
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How 'flower power' helped plants survive the extinction that killed the …
New research from the Milner Centre for Evolution shows how flowering plants survived one of the biggest mass extinction events in history.
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Flowers originated 50 million years earlier than previously thought
Scientists from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology reported that analysis of fossil specimens of a flower called Nanjinganthus from the Early Jurassic (more than 174 million years ago) suggests that flowers originated 50 million years earlier than previously thought.
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Among Flowering Plants, Thousands of Evolutionary Oddities at …
A new study identifies thousands of flowering plants belonging to rare and ancient lineages that are in urgent need of protection. … From this, scientists determined that more than 20 percent of the evolutionary history of flowering plants is at risk of being eradicated. The research, published in the journal *Science*, identified nearly 10,000 species that should be prioritized for conservation given their unique and threatened evolutionary history.
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Paleobotany: Did flowering plants exist in the Jurassic period? – eLife
The discovery of a fossil that might be the oldest flowering plant will continue the debate on the origin and structure of ancestral flowering plants.
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Dino-Era Fossil—The First Flower?
From a bed of volcanic ash deposited in northeastern China more than 124 million years ago, botanists have recovered impressively complete fossils of some of Earth's earliest flowering plants. … "These are the earliest, most complete remains of flowering plants yet discovered," Dilcher says. "What's spectacular about these fossils is that all parts of the plant are present, including the roots, leaves, and reproductive organs." The nearly intact specimen enabled the researchers to determine…
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Study finds one-fifth of flowering plant history at risk – YouTube
Over one fifth of the evolutionary history of the world's flowering plants is at risk of extinction, according to research by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the Zoological Society of London. #environment #science #plants #research #tree #News #Reuters #Newsfeed 👉 Subscribe: https://reut.rs/4b8fRGn Keep up with the latest news from around the world: https://www.reuters.com/ Follow Reuters on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Reuters Follow Reuters on X: https://twitter.com/Reuters Follow…
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Lab X – Anthophytes, Glossopterids and Others (5)
If we are to look for the earliest true angiosperms, we must first know what separates the flowering plants from the other seed plants. The obvious answer is flowers! … (1) The first true angiosperms appear in the fossil record in the Early Cretaceous.
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Solving the 70 Million Year “Gap” in Flower Evolution – YouTube
Go to http://curiositystream.com/scishow to start streaming Ant Mountain. Use the promo code ‘scishow’ during the sign-up process and you’ll get an annual subscription for just $1.25 per month. More than 90% of the plants on Earth are angiosperms, flowering plants whose seeds are enclosed inside fruit. And they’re everywhere — but exactly how and when these plants came to be so ubiquitous is one of the most stubborn questions in science! Hosted by: Stefan Chin SciShow has a spinoff podcast!…
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Plants may have weathered dinosaur extinction by doubling their DNA
Plants may have weathered dinosaur extinction by doubling their DNA.
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Flowering Plants Survived The Mass Extinction That Killed The …
A new study by researchers from the University of Bath (UK) and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (Mexico) shows that flowering plants escaped relatively unscathed from the mass extinction that killed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. Whilst they suffered some species loss, the devastating event helped flowering plants become the dominant type of plant […]
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Understanding of Earth's flowering plants blossoms in genome study
Flowering plants – from corn, wheat, rice and potatoes to maple, oak, apple and cherry trees as well as roses, tulips, daisies and dandelions and even the corpse flower and voodoo lily – are cornerstones of Earth's ecosystems and essential for humankind.
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Genome tree of life is largest yet for seed plants – EurekAlert!
Scientists at the American Museum of Natural History, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, the New York Botanical Garden, and New York University have created the largest genome-based tree of life for seed plants to date.
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[PDF] ABSTRACTS BOOK | STRI Research – Smithsonian Institution
Monday, 23 March 2026.
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Disappearing plants jeopardize a green future – Reuters
Nearly 800 plant species have disappeared since the 18th century, while thousands more are considered functionally extinct – no longer playing a role in their environment, or are so rare they are no longer able to reproduce.
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Study finds one-fifth of flowering plant history is at risk – Reuters
Over one fifth of the evolutionary history of the world's flowering plants is at risk of extinction, according to research by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the Zoological Society of London. Rachel Faber produced this report.
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'Botanical Pompeii' shows plants thrived before dinosaur extinction
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Over one fifth of the evolutionary history of the world's flowering …
Over one fifth of the evolutionary history of the world's flowering plants is at risk of extinction, according to research by the Royal …
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Extinction risk looms over fifth of flowering plant history – study
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[PDF] UC Berkeley – eScholarship.org
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Florissantia is an extinct genus of flowering plant that disappeared …
Florissantia is an extinct genus of flowering plant that disappeared from the fossil record roughly 30 million years ago. There is no asteroid impact or catastrophic volcanism to explain its…
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Large Angiosperm Trees Grew in North America 15 Million Years …
According to new research led by Dr. Nathan Jud of William Jewell College, angiosperm (also called broad-leaf, hardwood or deciduous) trees approaching 6.5 feet (2 m) in diameter were part of the forest canopies across southern North America by the Turonian stage of the Late Cretaceous epoch, approximately 92 million years ago — nearly 15 million years earlier than previously thought.
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Wyoming News's Home Page – NewsBreak
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Early Cretaceous angiosperm radiation in northeastern Gondwana
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The end-Cretaceous plant extinction: Heterogeneity, ecosystem …
The end-Cretaceous plant extinction: Heterogeneity, ecosystem transformation, and insights for the future – Volume 1
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Rise to dominance of angiosperm pioneers in European Cretaceous …
The majority of environments are dominated by flowering plants today, but it is uncertain how this dominance originated. This increase in angiosperm diversity happened during the Cretaceous period (ca. 145–65 Ma) and led to replacement and often …
A trove of fossilized fruits and seeds buried under volcanic ash nearly 75 million years ago has upended a long-held assumption in paleobotany: that flowering plants rose to dominance only after the asteroid strike that killed the dinosaurs.
The findings, published on Wednesday in the journal Science, describe what researchers are calling a “botanical Pompeii” — a snapshot of a mature, diverse forest dominated by flowering plants, preserved in extraordinary detail by ancient volcanic deposits dating to about 74.6 million years ago. news.berkeley.edu newscientist.com
Rewriting the Timeline
UC Berkeley paleobotanist Jaemin Lee and colleagues identified nearly 80 distinct types of fruits and seeds in the assemblage, some reaching about an inch in length — far larger than scientists had expected for the Cretaceous period. Previous fossil sites from the Late Cretaceous had led researchers to believe that many flowering plants, or angiosperms, were still low-growing and formed open vegetation rather than dense forests. msuexponent.com newscientist.com news.berkeley.edu
“Now, we have evidence that large fruits and seeds, along with the necessary ecological conditions, can be traced back to 10 million years prior to the asteroid that led to the dinosaurs’ demise,” Lee told New Scientist. newscientist.com
Dinosaurs as Seed Dispersers
The study suggests that plant-animal interactions — including seed dispersal by dinosaurs and other Cretaceous animals — were already well established millions of years before the mass extinction event 66 million years ago. Biologists had long thought angiosperms truly took off only after that impact cleared ecological space for them, with mammals and birds then driving the spread of fleshy-fruited plants. news.berkeley.edu newscientist.com
“This is the first record of pretty sizable fruits and seeds at the assemblage level in the Cretaceous,” Lee said. “This suggests that plant-animal interactions and the formation of angiosperm-dominated dense forests likely evolved before the end-Cretaceous extinction and subsequent ecological restructuring.” news.berkeley.edu
A Preserved Ecosystem
The volcanic ash that entombed the forest floor acted much like the ash at Pompeii, preserving organisms in place and offering researchers a rare window into an intact Late Cretaceous ecosystem. The discovery challenges the “catastrophist narrative” that flowering plants flourished only in the wake of the dinosaurs’ disappearance, instead painting a picture of rich forests where angiosperms and animals had already forged the ecological partnerships that define modern ecosystems. tiogapublishing.com news.berkeley.edu