A Biased, Misleading Review on Early Angiosperms

Abstract

A recently published review by Herendeen et al. is misleading, self-centered, self-praising, and self-conflicting. They excluded the famous early angiosperm Archaefructus from their list of exemplar angiosperms, which contained only fossil plants they published themselves, leaving the impression that they were only authoritative on the origin and early history of angiosperms. Their 57-year-old "No Angiosperms Until the Cretaceous" conception does not reflect the truth about the origin and early history of angiosperms. Reinforcing such vapidly repeated statement does not help resolving any problem in science but leads to no solution for the origin of angiosperms. The authors tried to establish a criterion identifying a fossil angiosperm but their own exemplar angiosperm Monetianthus overturns their own criterion. Apparently, such a review does not positively contribute much to science.

Did flowering plants exist in the Jurassic period?

“…Second, the fossil species must have at least one agreed-upon defining characteristic (such as an ovary); moreover, any additional characteristics must not be a defining characteristic for any other group of living or fossil non-flowering seed plants (which are collectively known as gymnosperms). Nanjinganthus does exhibit strong evidence that the seeds are within an ovary, which falls within a rather narrow definition of an angiosperm (Wang, 2017a; Wang, 2017b), and Fu et al conclude that the other characteristics of their specimens do not define any gymnosperm. Third, the fossil should have multiple characteristics of an angiosperm, and many of these should be consistent with the ancestral characteristics put forward by other researchers, based on studies of well-preserved fossils and modern plants.…”

“…However, unequivocal fossil evidence of angiosperms only dates back to 135 million years ago, well after the end of the Jurassic period. Moreover, recent reports of Jurassic flowers by Xin Wang of the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology and co-workers (which are summarized in Wang, 2017a; Wang, 2017b) and pollen have not been widely accepted (see Herendeen et al, 2017 for a review).…”

Divergence rates of subviral pathogens of angiosperms abruptly decreased at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary

“…3). Possible pre-Cretaceous origin of angiosperm plants is still a subject of debate (Herendeen et al 2017;Wang 2017;Fu et al 2018).…”

A novel angiosperm including various parts from the Early Cretaceous sheds new light on flower evolution

“…The Yixian Formation of Liaoning, China is famous worldwide for its early angiosperm fossils (Sun et al 1998(Sun et al , 2001(Sun et al , 2002Friis 2003, 2006;Ji et al 2004;Zheng 2009, 2012;Han et al 2013Han et al , 2017Liu and Wang 2017;Wang 2017Wang , 2018aWang , 2018bHan et al 2017) and animal fossils (including insects) (Wang et al 1989;Li and Luo 2006;Liu et al 2007Liu et al , 2008. These plants and animals together constitute the world famous Jehol Biota, which is also the biological background for angiosperm diversification in the Early Cretaceous.…”

“…These plants and animals together constitute the world famous Jehol Biota, which is also the biological background for angiosperm diversification in the Early Cretaceous. There was once some controversy over the age of the Yixian Formation (Sun et al 1998;Swisher et al 1998), but now there is a general consensus on the age of the Yixian Formation, namely, approximately 125 Ma (Barremian-Aptian, Early Cretaceous) (Dilcher et al 2007;Wang 2017).…”