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Charles Darwin called it an "abominable mystery" and it has perplexed generations of botanists who have tried to explain the sudden appearance of flowering plants 130 million years ago.
For tens of millions of years, land plants consisted of mosses, ferns, firs and conifers. But then, the fossil record shows, there was an explosion in a new kind of plant - one with flowers that soon became the most diverse and dominant botanical group.
Now scientists believe they are closer to solving Darwin's mystery with two studies showing how today's 400,000 species of flowering plants are related to one another, and, crucially, when they came into existence.
The findings show that all five major groups in the family tree of flowering plants originated within just five million years.
The research also points to unusual relationships, such as the close genetic similarity between the two largest groups of flowering plants, the monocots - which include grasses and orchids - and the eudicots, such as the sunflowers, tomatoes and cabbage family.
But it is the relatively sudden evolution of all the flowering plants from a common ancestor that has amazed scientists.
Professor Mark Chase of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London said a possible explanation for the success of flowering plants was the evolution of unique cells that could carry water efficiently from the roots to the leaves.
- Independent
