Editing Flowering plant (section)

=== Fossil history ===
{{main|Fossil history of flowering plants}}

[[File:Sagaria cilentana (cropped).jpg|thumb|upright|[[Adaptive radiation]] in the [[Cretaceous]] created many flowering plants, such as ''[[Sagaria]]'' in the [[Ranunculaceae]].]]

Fossilised [[spore]]s suggest that land plants ([[embryophyte]]s) have existed for at least 475&nbsp;million years.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Edwards |first=D. |title=The role of mid-palaeozoic mesofossils in the detection of early bryophytes |journal=Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences |volume=355 |issue=1398 |pages=733–54; discussion 754–5 |date=June 2000 |pmid=10905607 |pmc=1692787 |doi=10.1098/rstb.2000.0613 }}</ref> However, angiosperms [[abominable mystery|appear suddenly]] and in great diversity in the fossil record in the [[Early Cretaceous]] (~130 mya).<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Herendeen |first1=Patrick S. |last2=Friis |first2=Else Marie |last3=Pedersen |first3=Kaj Raunsgaard |last4=Crane |first4=Peter R. |date=2017-03-03 |title=Palaeobotanical redux: revisiting the age of the angiosperms |url=https://rdcu.be/c0Zhm |journal=Nature Plants |volume=3 |issue=3 |pages=17015 |doi=10.1038/nplants.2017.15 |pmid=28260783 |bibcode=2017NatPl...317015H |s2cid=205458714 |issn=2055-0278}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Friedman |first=William E. |date=January 2009 |title=The meaning of Darwin's "abominable mystery" |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3732/ajb.0800150 |journal=American Journal of Botany |volume=96 |issue=1 |pages=5–21 |doi=10.3732/ajb.0800150 |pmid=21628174}}</ref> Claimed records of flowering plants prior to this are not widely accepted.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bateman |first=Richard M |date=2020-01-01 |editor-last=Ort |editor-first=Donald |title=Hunting the Snark: the flawed search for mythical Jurassic angiosperms |url=https://academic.oup.com/jxb/article/71/1/22/5571867 |journal=Journal of Experimental Botany |language=en |volume=71 |issue=1 |pages=22–35 |doi=10.1093/jxb/erz411 |pmid=31538196 |issn=0022-0957}}</ref> Molecular evidence suggests that the ancestors of angiosperms diverged from the [[gymnosperms]] during the late [[Devonian]], about 365 million years ago.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Stull |first1=Gregory W. |last2=Qu |first2=Xiao-Jian |last3=Parins-Fukuchi |first3=Caroline |last4=Yang |first4=Ying-Ying |last5=Yang |first5=Jun-Bo |last6=Yang |first6=Zhi-Yun |last7=Hu |first7=Yi |last8=Ma |first8=Hong |last9=Soltis |first9=Pamela S. |last10=Soltis |first10=Douglas E. |last11=Li |first11=De-Zhu |display-authors=3 |date=19 July 2021 |title=Gene duplications and phylogenomic conflict underlie major pulses of phenotypic evolution in gymnosperms |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/s41477-021-00964-4 |journal=Nature Plants |volume=7|issue=8 |pages=1015–1025 |doi=10.1038/s41477-021-00964-4 |pmid=34282286 |bibcode=2021NatPl...7.1015S |s2cid=236141481 |access-date=10 January 2022 |archive-date=10 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220110174725/https://www.nature.com/articles/s41477-021-00964-4/ |url-status=live}}</ref> The origin time of the [[crown group]] of flowering plants remains contentious.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Sauquet |first1=Hervé |last2=Ramírez-Barahona |first2=Santiago |last3=Magallón |first3=Susana |date=2022-06-24 |editor-last=Melzer |editor-first=Rainer |title=What is the age of flowering plants? |url=https://academic.oup.com/jxb/article/73/12/3840/6570702 |journal=Journal of Experimental Botany |language=en |volume=73 |issue=12 |pages=3840–3853 |doi=10.1093/jxb/erac130 |pmid=35438718 |issn=0022-0957}}</ref> By the Late Cretaceous, angiosperms appear to have dominated environments formerly occupied by [[fern]]s and gymnosperms. Large [[Canopy (biology)|canopy]]-forming trees replaced [[conifer]]s as the dominant trees close to the end of the Cretaceous, 66 million years ago.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sadava |first1=David |last2=Heller |first2=H. Craig |last3=Orians |first3=Gordon H. |last4=Purves |first4=William K. |last5=Hillis |first5=David M. |display-authors=3 |title=Life: the science of biology |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1m0_FLEjd-cC&pg=PA477 |access-date=4 August 2010 |date=December 2006 |publisher=Macmillan |isbn=978-0-7167-7674-1 |pages=477– |archive-date=23 December 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111223082952/http://books.google.com/books?id=1m0_FLEjd-cC&pg=PA477|url-status=live}}</ref> The radiation of herbaceous angiosperms occurred much later.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Stewart |first1=Wilson Nichols |last2=Rothwell |first2=Gar W. |title=Paleobotany and the evolution of plants |edition=2nd |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |year=1993 |page=498 |isbn=978-0-521-23315-6 }}</ref>