Fossil evidence for a herbaceous diversification of early eudicot angiosperms during the Early Cretaceous.

ABSTRACT: Eudicot flowering plants comprise roughly 70% of land plant species diversity today, but their early evolution is not well understood. Fossil evidence has been largely restricted to their distinctive tricolpate pollen grains and this has limited our understanding of the ecological strategies that characterized their primary radiation. I describe megafossils of an Early Cretaceous eudicot from the Potomac Group in Maryland and Virginia, USA that are complete enough to allow reconstruction of important life-history traits. I draw on quantitative and qualitative analysis of functional traits, phylogenetic analysis and sedimentological evidence to reconstruct the biology of this extinct species. These plants were small and locally rare but widespread, fast-growing herbs. They had complex leave

SUBMITTER: Jud NA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4571693 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature