angiosperms older than Cretaceous?

[John Grehan]

Dieter Walossek wrote

>Dear all, as far as I know there was no more questioning about a
>pre-cretaceous origin of angiosperms before the Cretaceous, at least after
>the discoveries of tiny flowers in three-dimensional preservation, even
>with pollen still in their capsules, by Else Marie Frijs in the mid to late
>80ies. DIETER WALOSSEK

As I am not an angiosperm paleobotanist I cannot make an authoritative judgement
on the status of pre-Cretaceous angiosperms (at least not without doing some
research on the characters/structures etc). Sun et al  refer to other recent
reports of pre-Cretacous angiosperms, but say that none can be accepted as
conclusive evidence for the presence of angiosperms as they lack definitive
characters of angiosperms.

In the panbiogeography book we citeded Cornet (1986, 1989) and Cornet and
Habib (1992) on pre-angiosperms fossils.
Sun et al may or may not be correct about the precision of earlier
documentation. I was
interested in their article as further corroboration of both Croizat, and
of course,
other palaeobotanical works.

The additional literature listed by Walossek will be most helpful to me,
and I am
grateful that he listed them.

John Grehan



>
>Crane, Peter R., Friis, Else Marie & Pedersen, Kaj Raunsgaard 1986
>        Lower Cretaceous Angiosperm Flowers: Fossil Evidence on Early
>Radiation of Dicotyledons.      Science 232, 852-854; Washington.
>Friis, Else Marie 1984  Preliminary report of Upper Cretaceous angiosperm
>reproductive organs from Sweden and their level of organization.
>        Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 71, 403-418.
>Friis, Else Marie 1985  Actinocalyx gen.nov., sympetalous angiosperm
>flowers from the Upper Cretaceous of Southern Sweden.   Palaeobotany and
>Palynology 45, 171-183. Amsterdam.
>Friis, Else Marie, Crane, P.R. & Pedersen, K.R. 1986    Floral evidence for
>Cretaceous chloranthoid angiosperms.    Nature 320(6058), 163-164.
>Friis, Else Marie & Crepet, W.L. 1987   Time of appearance of floral
>features.       In Friis, E.M., Chaloner, W.G. & Crane, P.R. (eds.): The
>Origin of Angiosperms and their Biological Consequences, 145-179. Cambridge
>University Press, .................
>Friis, Else Marie & Skarby, A. 1981     Structurally preserved angiosperm
>flowers from the Upper Cretaceous of Southern Sweden.   Nature 291(5815),
>485-486.
>
>University professor and head of the Section for Biosystematic Documentation
>University of Ulm, Helmholtzstrasse 20, 89081 Ulm, Germany
>phone 0731-50-31000/31001, Fax 31009
>e-mail: dieter.walossek at biologie.uni-ulm.de -
>http://www.biologie.uni-ulm.de/biosysdoc/
>Homepage of the >Gesellschaft fuer Biologische Systematik<:
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