Botanical Pompeii find shows flowering plants flourished before dinosaur extinction

Reconstruction of the forest floor of the 74.6 million-year-old Dori's Tuff flora, featuring hypothetical angiosperm disperser interactions. The plants depicted, including the foliage, fruits, seeds and flowers, were illustrated in life position based on the fossil plants found at the site and their inferred growth habits. The mammalian and dinosaur seed dispersers depicted were based on the known fauna from the broader region during the late Campanian. (Brian Engh via SWNS)

By Stephen Beech

The discovery of a "botanical Pompeii" has rewritten a long-held theory that flowering plants only flourished after the dinosaurs.

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(Photo by Linnaea Mallette via Pexels)

Botanical Pompeii find shows flowering plants flourished before dinosaur extinction

Examples of seeds/fruits from the Dori’s Tuff flora, Jose Creek Formation, New Mexico, showing tiny seeds (upper left) to large fruits en masse. The scale bar is 1 centimeter. (Cindy Looy / Jaemin Lee / UC Berkeley via SWNS)

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(Photo by Filip Chmielecki via Pexels)

Originally published on talker.news, part of the BLOX Digital Content Exchange.

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