Flowering plants - from corn, wheat, rice and potatoes to maple, oak, apple and cherry trees as well as roses, tulips, daisies and dandelions and even the corpse flower and voodoo lily - are cornerstones of Earth's ecosystems and essential for humankind.
New research based on genome data for 9,506 species, as well as an examination of 200 fossils, provides the deepest understanding to date of the evolutionary history of flowering plants, called angiosperms - the largest and most diverse plant group. It details how angiosperms appeared and became dominant during the age of dinosaurs and how they have changed over time.
The scientists devised a new tree of life for angiosperms, covering 15 times more types of flowering plants - nearly 60% of them - than the nearest comparable study.
