Abstract
FLOWERING plants or angiosperms have dominated the Earth's flora since at least the late Cretaceous1 and were already highly diversified by Barremian times, about 120 million years (Myr) ago. However, because of the paucity of fossilized angiosperm reproductive structures from lower Cretaceous sediments2,3and the absence of generally recognized angiosperm fossils from pre-Cretaceous strata4,5, their origins and early evolution remain obscure. Similarly, attempts to understand pre-Cretaceous angiosperm evolution4–11 have been impaired by difficulties in defining and interpreting angiospermous characters in fossil specimens8,12. We report here molecular evidence suggesting that angiosperm ancestors underwent diversification more than 300 Myr ago.
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Martin, W., Gierl , A. & Saedler, H. Molecular evidence for pre-Cretaceous angiosperm origins. Nature 339, 46–48 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1038/339046a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/339046a0
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