The time of appearance of the first flowers on Earth is named

Hundreds of scientists have studied the genes of 9,500 plant species

Researchers from all over the world have studied different types of flowers. They analyzed both extinct and “living” plants. Detailed analysis was able to reveal the exact age of the appearance of the first flowers on Earth. It turned out that today the overwhelming majority of plants on the planet are flowers.

Photo: Olga Shuklina < span itemprop="height" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/QuantitativeValue">

Scientists from 48 different countries collected both living flowers and extinct plants that are stored in museums and monitored their evolution.

A study recently published in the journal Nature now suggests that 80 percent of all flowers arose during a «genetic explosion» about 150 million years ago. Flowers then became the dominant plants on earth.

The genetic explosion means that many new species appeared in a relatively short period of time.

New research methods developed in the last few years make it easier and easier to accelerate the thorough study of all flower genes. Much of what plant geneticists and other biologists thought they knew about flowers has been confirmed.

In addition, it turns out that the flowers of the Asteraceae family, which includes sunflowers and daisies, belong to a different large genus of flowers than expected.

“About 90% of all known plant species on earth are flowers. Flowers include trees, shrubs and herbs,” biologists explain.

Flowers have in common that they form petals and that they have seeds enclosed in fruits. Grains and herbs often have small and inconspicuous flower petals, but they are still flowering plants.

The researchers also used 200 plant fossils to date the flowers. Thus, they confirm that in a short period of time, about 150 million years ago, there were many more flowers.

This “explosion” occurred during the time of the dinosaurs. This was at the end of a time period called the Jurassic period. About 40 million years ago, flower species diversity increased again. Then this happened during a period of declining global temperatures.