News tagged with fossil flowers

Flowers' rapid growth rate can be traced back 65 million years

Researchers have discovered that an evolutionary change from 65 million years ago may have set the pace for the rapid growth rate of present-day flowering plants.

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created May 10, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

First rainforests arose when plants solved plumbing problem

A team of scientists, including several from the Smithsonian Institution, discovered that leaves of flowering plants in the world's first rainforests had more veins per unit area than leaves ever had before. ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created May 03, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (9) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Study names new genus of 125-million-year-old eudicot from China

(PhysOrg.com) -- A University of Florida researcher has helped describe the earliest known fossil remains of a flowering plant from China that has a direct evolutionary relationship with most plants humans ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Mar 30, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (3) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

Early sunflower family fossil found in South America

(PhysOrg.com) -- A beautifully preserved fossil identified as being of an early relative of the Asteraceae, or aster, family nearly 50 million years old suggests the plant family, which has now colonized much ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Sep 28, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (7) | comments 2 | with audio podcast report

Flower power makes tropics cooler, wetter

The world is a cooler, wetter place because of flowering plants, according to new climate simulation results published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The effect is especially pronounced in the ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Jun 16, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (9) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Can the morphology of fossil leaves tell us how early flowering plants grew?

Fossils and their surrounding matrix can provide insights into what our world looked like millions of years ago. Fossils of angiosperms, or flowering plants (which are the most common plants today), first ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Mar 23, 2010 | popularity 4 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Molecular study could push back angiosperm origins

Flowering plants may be considerably older than previously thought, says a new analysis of the plant family tree.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Mar 15, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Can modern-day plants trace their New Zealand ancestry?

One hundred million years ago the earth looked very different from how it does today. Continents were joining and breaking apart, dinosaurs were roaming the earth, and flowering plants were becoming more widespread.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Jan 21, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

The evolution of orchids

(PhysOrg.com) -- Charles Darwin and many other scientists have long been puzzled by the evolution of orchids, the largest and most diverse family of flowering plants on Earth. Now genetic sequencing is giving ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Nov 19, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (8) | comments 4 weblog

Unexpected amber find rewrites botanical history

(PhysOrg.com) -- An unexpected discovery made by Macquarie University PhD student Sargent Bray about the origin and nature of chemical compounds contained in ancient amber has changed our understanding of ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Oct 02, 2009 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (9) | comments 0

Weeds that reinvented weediness

Flowering plants are all around us and are phenomenally successful—but how did they get to be so successful and where did they come from? This question bothered Darwin and others and a paper published in the September issue ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Sep 03, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Paleontologist reflects on Darwinian connections

(PhysOrg.com) -- As the former director and chief executive of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in England, Sir Peter Crane often walked in the footsteps of Charles Darwin.

Biology /

created Jan 30, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0