How Flowers Conquered The World

How Flowers Conquered The World

Matt Walker

Editor, Earth News

The great explosion in flowering plants during the Cretaceous Period is one of the great enigmas of evolution.

Charles Darwin had no explanation, calling it an "abominable mystery."

But now scientist think they have solved the riddle of how flowers came to dominate the conifers and ferns that preceded them.

The flowers' secret, they say, was to exploit a change in soil fertility, and create a feedback loop that allowed new flowers to feed off dead ones.

The relative explosion of flowering plants greatly worried Darwin...

This is a really interesting article, to read the rest of it go to:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8143000/8143095.stm