back to article Boffins identify world's (possibly) first flowering plant

US and European plant boffins have identified what may be the world's first flowering plant, an aquatic species which once grew abundantly in freshwater lakes in what is now Spain. The team, led by Indiana University paleobotanist David Dilcher, examined more than 1,000 fossilised specimens of Montsechia vidalii, dating back …

  1. AbelSoul
    Trollface

    the idea of the 'first flower' is "technically a myth, like the 'first human'

    No first human?

    I don't Adam & Eve it!

  2. Your alien overlord - fear me

    If it lived it's life underwater then how do the bees pollenate it? These boffins do talk rubbish sometimes or are they going to find the first bee which also lived underwater?

    1. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
      Boffin

      Like grasses which are wind pollinated, many if not most underwater angiosperms are pollinated through water currents (last time I looked I never spotted bees in scuba gear ;-) )

    2. Doctor_Wibble
      Devil

      Birds, bees and assorted coelacanths

      Of course there were underwater bees, they just looked a bit different even if they didn't buzz in quite the same way. Obviously they changed slightly after the trees had wandered off onto dry land but that's to be expected.

      And something about mutant bastard fish squirrels.

  3. PK

    puzzled

    So if flowers are relatively recent, where do trees with blossom fit in? Are the also descended from this or are they still related to other trees which have been around a lot longer? Parallel evolution?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: puzzled

      In most forests the trees ARE fairly parallel...

    2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: puzzled

      Trees with blossom are just flowering plants that happen to have adapted a particular mode of growth. A given flowering plant family can have herbaceous and woody members. The rose family, for instance, has members ranging from the strawberry, distinctly herbaceous, through roses and blackberries, shrubby, to apples and pears, trees.

      1. jake Silver badge

        @Doctor Syntax (was: Re: puzzled)

        You missed the most important member of the Rose family: Garlic.

        My wife grows the Ranch's garlic in her Rose Garden. Most people don't get it ;-)

      2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        Re: puzzled

        A given flowering plant family can have herbaceous and woody members

        For that matter, some herbaceous plants are quite large and treelike - banana "trees", for example.

  4. phil dude
    Boffin

    biological components...

    ....are all made of the same molecules. Therefore, diffusion is often sufficient to send a message when the local geometry allows. When timing matters, kinesin and microtubules are used...(our cells are working *all* the time).

    P.

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