A recent study has shown that flowering plants appeared much earlier than previously believed. Its appearance is located in the Triassic, more than 250 million years ago.
This is an amazing discovery as it has been shown that flowering plants appeared 100 million years earlier than previously thought.
Flowering plants evolved from the plants we know today as conifers, seed ferns, cycads, or even the Ginkgo, a genus of which only the species Ginkgo biloba remains , but which in the Triassic period had numerous species.
Flowers are an adaptation that developed as various animals, including insects, appeared and evolved. The evolution of flowering plants and animals occurs in almost the same time period , since plants need pollinating insects to fertilize their seeds and propagate their species, and insects need nectar or pollen, depending on the species. whatever the flower provides, or even the perfume, to survive or be able to reproduce by finding a partner.
The part of the flower that fossilizes most easily is the pollen, even better than leaves or stems. An unbroken sequence of fossilized pollen began about 140 million years ago, and experts assumed that flowers first appeared on Earth at that time, during the Early Cretaceous. After this new discovery, its appearance is located in the Triassic, more than 250 million years ago.
Many experts have tried before to determine the age of flowering plants through molecular studies. However, it was not until this new study was carried out with fossils that they have been able to get even closer to the correct age of these plants.
