Flowers discovered perfectly preserved in globs of amber bloomed at the feet of dinosaurs, suggesting that some flowering plants in South Africa today have remained unchanged for 99 million years, a new study reveals.
The two flowers once bloomed in what is now Myanmar and may shed light on how flowering plants evolved — a major episode in the history of life that was once described by Charles Darwin as an “abominable mystery.”
Flowers are ephemeral: They bloom, transform into a fruit and then disappear. As such, ancient flowers aren’t well represented in the fossil record, making these ancient blooms — and the history they carry with them — particularly precious.
“Leaves are generally produced in larger numbers than flowers and are much more robust — they have a higher preservation potential. A leaf is discarded ‘as is’ at the end of its useful life, while a flower transforms into a fruit, which then gets eaten or disintegrates as part of the seed dispersal process,” said study author Robert Spicer, a professor emeritus in the School of Environment
