It's difficult to peer into the past to see the first flowering plant, but Charlie Scutt shows how an ancestor in the modern-era provides some clues as to what it looked like.
Amborella trichopoda, the sister species of all other extant angiosperms, is typically dioecious, producing male and female flowers on separate individuals. Anger et al. map sex phenotypes onto a phylogeny of basally...
Flowering plants have had an intimate relationship with insects for millions of years. Indeed, this is often cited as an example of co-evolution , particularly with regards to the flowers and their pollination...
Rare and monotypic Amborella is probably the living – extant – flowering plant closest evolutionarily to the first true member of the angiosperm group.
A revelation concerning amber-encased plant material suggests current sexual reproduction in angiosperms may have changed little in over 100 million years.