Flowering Plants
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The 250,000 to 400,000 species of flowering plants outnumber all other ground plants combined, and are the dominant vegetation in most terrestrial ecosystems. There is fossil evidence that flowering plants diversified rapidly in the Early Cretaceous, from 130 to 90 Ma, and that their rise was associated with that of pollinating insects. Among modern flowering plants Magnolias are thought to be close to the common ancestor of the group. However paleontologists have not succeeded in identifying the earliest stages in the evolution of flowering plants.
Read more about this topic: Evolutionary History Of Life
Famous quotes containing the words flowering and/or plants:
“And the angel in the gate, the flowering plum,
Dances like Italy, imagining red.”
—Louis Simpson (b. 1923)
“We have been God-like in our planned breeding of our domesticated plants and animals, but we have been rabbit-like in our unplanned breeding of ourselves.”
—A.J. (Arnold Joseph)