Researchers have found the first examples of flower buds in 164 million-year-old plant fossils in China. This discovery greatly encouraged the emergence of flowering plants in Indonesia Jurassic era, between 145 million and 201 million years ago.
The fossil, found in China’s Inner Mongolia region, is 1.7 inches (4.2 cm) long and 0.8 inches (2 cm) wide. It has stems, leafy twigs, round fruit, and small flower buds measuring about 3 millimeters square. The researchers named the new species Florigerminis Jurassica.
There are two main types of plants: flowering plants, known as angiosperms, and non-flowering plants, known as gymnosperms. The flower buds and fruit in the fossil are both clear indications of this F. Jurassica It was angiosperms rather than gymnosperms, which were the dominant plant type during the Jurassic period. So far, fossil evidence has shown that angiosperms did not even appear lime period, between 66 million and 145 million years ago, but the new fossils are the most convincing evidence to date that this is not the case.
Related: 10 Coolest Non-Dinosaur Fossils Found in 2021
–
–
“Many ancient botanists are amazed [by the fossil]Because it is very different from what is stated in the books,” senior author Shen Wang, a researcher at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGPAS), told Live Science by email. But I’m not surprised either.”
The new fossil is not the oldest example of a fossil flower ever found. In 2018, in a study published in eLife, the researchers described a 174-million-year-old flower of a plant in the genus Nanjinganthus, also located in China, Live Science previously reported.
However, some researchers have questioned whether Nanjinganthus It can really be considered an angiosperm as the flowers are not complex enough to distinguish it from the leaf structure seen in gymnosperms, ScienceAlert reports. The flowers are also very delicate and difficult to petrify, Wang said, making them difficult to distinguish from other plant materials.
But the flower and fruit buds in the new fossil prove it beyond a doubt F. Jurassica He must have said it was an angiosperm. Therefore, the fossil “confirms the existence of angiosperms in the Jurassic and requires rethinking of angiosperm evolution,” the researchers said. write in a statement.
Wang believes that many other plant genera are known from the Jurassic period, including NanjinganthusAnd gurahirpaAnd johaniaAnd guarafrutusAnd Xingxueanthus And schnitzelIt could be an angiosperm, but he says there’s no way to be sure without fossil evidence. Until recently, scientists had only assumed that this genus was gymnosperms because they date back to the Jurassic period.
However, if angiosperms existed during the Jurassic period, they would have been so sparse compared to gymnosperms and geographically isolated, making it impossible to find other well-preserved examples of flower buds, he said.
Or, maybe too F. Jurassica This was probably one of the first evolutionary links between ancient angiosperm-like plants, such as NanjinganthusTrue angiosperms were only recently discovered in the Cretaceous period, Wang said.
The study was published online on January 6 in the journal Geological Society of London.
Originally published in Live Science.
–
