This book about fossil plants of prehistoric angiosperms offers the newest research on their origin. It emphasizes the early Cretaceous and Jurassic materials and integrates multiple techniques to study the morphology, anatomy and phylogeny of the fossils.

Angiosperms are the most diversi ed plant group in the world, being represented by ca 300,000 species in about 400 families. Like all of Life, including ourselves, they have had their own history and gone through many evolutionary stages before they arrived at their current forms. The origin of Angiospermae ( owering plants) has been the subject of much dispute because this is a key event in the history of life, and has a far-reaching in uence on our understanding of relationships among seed plants as a whole as well as within the angiosperms. Until recently most of palae- otanists recognized angiosperms only from the Cretaceous and younger strata. This contradicts the results of molecular analyses. I have been working on Mesozoic fossil plants for the past two decades, during which time I have studied a number of fossil plants. Some of these fossil plants have been published as Jurassic angiosperms, and, unsurprisingly, many questions and doubts have been raised about them. These questions need to be addressed se- ously and journal papers do not provide suf cient space to compare and relate these early angiosperms. In this book these pioneer angiosperms are documented in detail, sometimes with new specimens not studied before. Also, I propose a de nition of angiosperms that could be adopted in palaeobotany. My aim is to improve clarity and objectivity of judgment about what constitutes a fossil angiosperm.

Klappentext

This book is about fossil plants of so-called "pre-historic" angiosperms. It reflects the newest progress in research on the origin of angiosperms, and will definitely trigger many new ideas in research. It emphasizes the early Cretaceous and Jurassic materials, rather than later ones, as they are the key periods for the origin of angiosperms.The author integrates multiple techniques, including SEM, TEM, light microscopy, peeling and cladistics, to study the morphology, anatomy and phylogeny of the fossils. Several Jurassic materials of angiosperms that have never been reported before are included, these used to be thought as pre-historic for flowering plants. Two more fossils angiosperms from the Yixian Formation, where Archaefructus was excavated, are reported. Newer and stricter criterion for identifying fossil angiosperms is proposed.

Inhalt

1. Introduction, 2. Suggested angiosperm ancestors, 3. Angiosperms: characters and criteria, 4. Background for the plant fossils, 5. Flowers from the Early Cretaceous, 6. Flower-related fossils from the Jurassic, 7. Trace of possible angiosperms in the Jurassic, 8. Making of the flower, 9. General conclusions, 10. Appendix