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From: frist@ccu.umanitoba.ca
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Flowering plants
Summary: Evidence of angiosperms in the fossil record
Message-ID: <1990Oct18.142341.6998@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Date: 18 Oct 90 14:23:41 GMT
References: <28272@boulder.Colorado.EDU>
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada
Lines: 26

In article <28272@boulder.Colorado.EDU> eesnyder@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Eric E. Snyder) writes:
>A friend of mine came up with a statement that struck me a patently
>absurd....
>
>"there is no evidence of angiosperms (flowering plants) in the 
>fossil record"
>
>I feel an little embarrased asking but, is this true?  On a related

Your friend is probably a Special Creationist. While Gymnosperms dominated
much of the first parts of the Mesozoic era (Triassic and Jurassic),
starting in the Cretaceous period (roughly 130Myr ago), the angiosperm
radiation can be observed. During this period, mass extinctions of
gymnosperms occurred, so that there are today fewer than 1000 species of
gymnosperms. In contrast, most of the plants species we see today are 
angiosperms. 

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