Evolution
Until recently, fossil findings indicated that grasses evolved around 55 million years ago. Recent findings of grass-like phytoliths in Cretaceous dinosaur coprolites have pushed this date back to 65 million years ago. Indeed, revised dating of the origins of the rice tribe Oryzeae suggest a date as early as 107 to 129 Mya.
The relationships among the subfamilies Bambusoideae, Ehrhartoideae and Pooideae in the BEP clade have been resolved: Bambusoideae and Pooideae are more closely related to each other than to Ehrhartoideae. This separation occurred within a relatively short time span (about 4 million years).
Read more about this topic: Poaceae
Famous quotes containing the word evolution:
“Like Freud, Jung believes that the human mind contains archaic remnants, residues of the long history and evolution of mankind. In the unconscious, primordial “universally human images” lie dormant. Those primordial images are the most ancient, universal and “deep” thoughts of mankind. Since they embody feelings as much as thought, they are properly “thought feelings.” Where Freud postulates a mass psyche, Jung postulates a collective psyche.”
—Patrick Mullahy (b. 1912)
“What we think of as our sensitivity is only the higher evolution of terror in a poor dumb beast. We suffer for nothing. Our own death wish is our only real tragedy.”
—Mario Puzo (b. 1920)
“The evolution of sense is, in a sense, the evolution of nonsense.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)