Re: World's Oldest Flower

[Jeff Hecht <jhecht@world.std.com>]

Mary wrote:
>AP has an article about the Science (11/26) paper on the finding of the
>world's oldest flower (with picture):
>
>http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/ap/ap_us/story.html?s=v/ap/19981126/us/ol
>dest_flower_2.html
>
This comes from the Yixian formation, which also yielded Sinosauropteryx,
Caudipteryx, etc. The age is variously estimated at 120-142 million years,
but even the younger dates would make it the world's oldest solid evidence
of a flowering plant. It's the cover photo on this week's issue of Science,
and the photos are nice. -- Jeff Hecht