A Cornell botany professor says that, with the discovery of the world's oldest flowering-plant fossil, scientists from China and the University of Florida have made a giant leap toward solving Charles Darwin's "Abominable Mystery," the plant world's missing link.
A report in the journal Science Nov. 27 describes the discovery of a Jurassic period fossil of a flowering plant, possibly 148 million years old. In an accompanying article, William L. Crepet, Cornell professor of botany and director of the university's Liberty Hyde Bailey Hortorium, notes that "to the world of botany, it's a discovery of the same scale as understanding the details of why the dinosaurs became extinct."
While discoveries in genetics have supported Darwin's theory of human evolution, research has yet to explain the gap between the non-flowering plants of the pre-Jurassic period and the flowering plants (plants that bear flowers and fruits) of the Cretaceous period. Says Crepet: "I predict that the great 'Abominable Mystery,' with us for over 100 years, will not last another 10 years. Meanwhile, this discovery breathes new life into theories that ancient angiosperms shared magnolialean (magnolia-like) characters."
There are more than 300,000 species of flowering plants -- scientifically known as angiosperms -- providing food, the basis for medicines and other commodities. "The flowering plants are of overwhelming ecological significance, defining most major habitats including the vital rainforests of the tropics," writes Crepet. The search for the origin of flowering-plant relationships "has been a Holy Grail for botanists for over 100 years," he writes. "Given the impact of these plants on global fitness, such inadequate understanding of their history and relationships is a stunning gap in our knowledge."
Crepet's perspective, "The Abominable Mystery," accompanies Science's cover story, "In Search of the First Flower: A Jurassic Angiosperm Archaefructus, from Northeast China," by Sun Ge of Academia Sinica, Nanjing, China; David Dilcher, professor, University of Florida, Gainesville; Sholing Zheng, Shenyang Institute of Geology and Mineral Resources, Shenyang, China; and Chekun Zhou, a former Cornell visiting faculty member, now at Kunming Institute of Botany, Academia Sinica, Kunming, China.
The fossil was found last year near Beipiao, China, about 250 miles northeast of Beijing, according to the University of Florida. It had been embedded in limestone and was brought to Sun, who then sought out Dilcher. The specimen has been identified as a magnolia-like plant, but it is different from today's flowering plants. The specimen shares many characteristics of modern magnolias, but it is unique, representing a combination of features not found in any known living or other flower.
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