Ancient fossil pushes back flower origins to before dinosaurs
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Researchers from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology in China discovered a 295-million-year-old fossil in the Shanxi province that challenges current understanding of when flowering plants first appeared.
The team identified a new genus and species, Permocarpelloides shuozhouensis, consisting of three small structures, between 4.2 and 4.8 millimeters in length, containing what they believe are seeds or developing ovules.
The fossil dates back to the early Permian period, significantly earlier than the previously accepted timeframe for the emergence of flowering plants, which was around 130 to 145 million years ago during the Cretaceous period. This discovery suggests flowers may be 150 million years older than scientists thought. The arrangement of the seeds within the structures is also important because it resembles the way seeds develop inside flowers today, differing from gymnosperms like pine trees that leave their seeds exposed.
This team previously proposed other fossils as potential early angiosperms, but Permocarpelloides is the most convincing yet due to the structural organization of its carpels, which are similar to those found in modern Magnoliales flowers. While incomplete fossils can lead to different interpretations, the researchers note that even if Permocarpelloides is reclassified, it would still demonstrate that enclosing seeds within a protective structure was occurring in plants much earlier than previously known.
