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The first flowering plants

Flowers are the last major development of plant-kind. Flowering plants appeared in the early Cretaceous, 140 million years ago. This reconstruction comes from ‘History of Life’ by Richard Cowen.

Nothing of remotely similar significance has appeared since. Plant-life’s previous major developments, the vascular system, leaves and seeds, had all happened more than 200 million years earlier (more). The great Carboniferous coal forests, the coming of the great supercontinent of Pangaea, the strange Triassic animals, even the coming of the dinosaurs, had all happened with plants relying on the wind to arrange their sex for them.

The fact that it took plants so long to improve on wind pollination shows how well it was serving them. And of course, many plants and trees still rely on it today. But wind pollination is very wasteful. And eventually, with the break-up of Pangaea, some plants discovered the advantages of adopting more efficient methods of fertilisation. How might it have happened? Well pollen is very nutritious. Insects and beetles had probably been dining off pollen ever since plants started producing it. No doubt many plants found their ova being fertilised in this way by accident.

Then, after an interminably long time as we’ve seen, some plants starting actively encouraging insects to visit them. And flowering plants appeared. The inviting flower pinpointed exactly where the food was to be found. The pollen was made easier to gather and the female parts were moved closer to where the pollen was. I don’t suppose we know when scent was added, possibly at much the same time.

It is no accident that this early flower looks remarkably like a Magnolia. Magnolias are regarded as one of the most ancient plants still around, and their flowers are still ‘primitive’ today. Unfortunately the plant breeders have got at the magnolias, and very few of them look the part at all. But here is a picture of a Magnolia tripetala from the garden of Anna Pavord.

Below it is a water lily from my own garden. Water lilies are regarded as pretty ancient too.

A primitive flower is one that opens its doors wide and welcomes all comers. It’s a safety-first strategy. There will almost always be some small creatures around to feast off your nectar, and your pollen. But you have to service a large number of individuals to ensure that enough go next to another of your flowers. So it’s also wasteful.

Gradually, some plants got fed up with this waste, and developed increasingly sophisticated flowers. They began to concentrate their attentions on particular ‘vectors’ (to use the jargon term), and made it difficult or impossible for others to taste their wares. This reduces the wastage considerably.

But it’s also dangerous, particularly if you take it to an extreme, because if anything happens to your chosen vector then you are sunk. However some flowers, particularly in the rainforests, have done just that. And many have got away with it so far.

All systems can work very well. From wind pollination, the ultimate in simplicity and wastefulness, to flowers that require their vectors to develop specialised mouth parts in order to sup with them, all these strategies have survived and are serving their host plants well.