[Taxacom] Angiosperm origins: Darwin's "abominable" mystery

[Curtis Clark]

On 3/18/2010 8:28 PM, Kenneth Kinman wrote:
>         However, new molecular evidence published in Proceedings of the
> National Academy of Sciences earlier this week indicates that even the
> crown clade of angiosperms may have originated as early as the Upper
> Triassic.

This has long been a bone of contention independent of Croizat. Dan 
Axelrod introduced me to the idea of Triassic angiosperms; his 
contention was that, because they evolved in the uplands, we'd be 
unlikely to see fossils. There were even some fossil contenders, such as 
Sanmiguelia (?); I remember that many if not all turned out to not be 
angiosperms on closer study.

I think it's interesting that John is okay with molecular clocks when 
they agree with Croizat.

-- 
Curtis Clark                  http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark/
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