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Dear Members, I am a student studying the coevolution of angiosperms and insect pollinators. It has been mentioned in some of the texts I have been studying that, "Mesozoic seed ferns have the prerequisite architectural design and anatomical peculiarities to give rise to the angiosperms"... "The key to understanding lies in a comparison with Jurassic seed ferns, which has never been accomplished because of inadequate fossil record. Finding an Upper Jurassic seed fern with all or nearly all of the structural angiosperm features would be strong evidence that flowering plants arose in the lower-most Cretaceous. Unfortunately, the absolute criterion for defining angiospermy is double fertilization,...a feature that is not preserved in the fossil record.", Brown (1983). My question is two-fold. First, since my reference is thirteen years old have there been discoveries since that fill Browns' criteria for an Upper Jurassic seed fern with angiosperm features? Second, if it is possible for microscopic bacteria to be fossilized in Cambrian sediments, would it not also be possible for features of double fertilization to also be preserved in the fossil record?, or is this just a little too much to hope for? Sincerely, Bob Anderson - banderson@hamptons.com
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