Among Charles Darwin's problems was how to account for the divers[ificat]ion of flowering plants 135 Mya. This is so firmly Cretaceous it might even define the period. As with the Cambrian explosion of fauna, this flora explosion should have stemmed (as it were) from earlier examples.
In Switzerland, Daniele Silvestro hammers down the timeline: earliest (pre-Carnian) Triassic. But they were rare components of ecosystems that were unlikely to fossilise
- explaining why we don't see 'em.
In Chicago, Patrick Herendeen questions the base data. If Silvestro is reviewing garbage, his results are garbage. Herendeen would not even look before that 201.3 Mya event.
I'd go about this around the sidelines. Flowers have evolved to attract tiny animals that will suck the nectar without swallowing the pollen. That tends to flying insects like the bee, and occasional hummingbirds. There was a dragonfly waaayyy back in the Carboniferous I believe. If we find a Jurassic fossil butterfly we (should) know that it had flowers to flap around.
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