A lot more is known about the evolution of flowering plants than most people realize. Christopher Taylor over at Catalogue of Organisms1 has done the homework and posts a must-read article on the subject [The Origins of Flowers]. He begins by asking the questions, "... what exactly makes flowering plants so distinct? What do they have that no other plant has?" Think of the answers, then get on over to his blog to find out why you are wrong!
1. One of the top ten biological science blogs, in my humble opinion.
8 comments :
Happy "three days after Canada Day"!
Wow. Flattery will get you everywhere. I'm blushing.
"... what exactly makes flowering plants so distinct? What do they have that no other plant has?"
The obvious answer would be: flowers. Since it's obvious, I presume it is wrong.
And thanks to that post I can now call myself a real science-writer - I've been quote-mined! :-D
Another scathing review of Expelled:
Latest salvo in evolution-versus-creation debate insults the intelligence
Scott McKeen, The Edmonton Journal
...
"Expelled did a great job of distorting, misrepresenting and conflating truths, half-truths and outright deceptions," says Caldwell.
"And that was only in the first five minutes."
Another scathing review of Expelled
It was that, but as it is Monday I'm easily grouched and nitpicky.
McKeen took to making a strawman out of atheists to make a joke. Most atheists are practical and would convert then provided factual evidence of course, e.g. Dawkins as he refers to has said as much IIRC. I suspect even philosophical agnostics would do that in such a case despite that they make the claim that evidence is impossible.
As McKeen made the effort to access an atheist source (Caldwell) it is bad source work. (The same bad source work shows up on the unsubstantiated claims on physics, btw.)
Ah, well, it is always fun to see Expelled expelled.
PBS Nova had a documentary they called "The First Flower" about the plant archaefructus. I am not specialist at all, so I cannot properly evaluate the claims.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/flower/about.html
It also says that the amborella in New Caledonia is the oldest known living flower. Probably there has been other research, but it was an informative program.
I suspect that you will find interesting a proposal that angiosperm plants evolved on the Ontong-Java Plateau before the Cretaceous in http://charles_w.tripod.com/ontong.html and below; You may see its publication in http://gsjournal.net/Science-Journals/Research%20Papers-Paleontology/Download/4719 . Also you may see an explanation for the boundaries of the temperate deciduous forest as a function of glaze ice storms in http://charles_w.tripod.com/glaze.html .
Sincerely, Charles Weber
PERMIAN MONSOON EVOLUTION OF ANGIOSPERMS to FURNISH DECIDUOUS GLAZE ICE TREES
by Charles Weber
Angiosperms had to have existed before the early Cretaceous when they appeared fully formed. I suspect they evolved since the Carboniferous on an island mini continent Angiosperm (also called magnoliophyta) deciduous dicotyledon trees have had much more success in surviving in glaze ice areas than other types of trees because of less branch breakage in winter time. They started to become established in North American subarctic regions in the Paleocene and were fully established before the Eocene closed. They probably descended largely from subtropical trees. I suspect that they may have evolved the precursor genes on a now submerged South Western Pacific mini continent, the Ontong Java Plateau, probably as early as the Permian, as a monsoon area adaptation. Their seeds were probably carried to the mainland on the feet of water birds and in the crops of seed eating birds.
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