The study of fossil pollen grains by a group of researchers, including Kew scientists, revealed the daisy family, Asteraceae, to be 20 million years older than previously assumed.
Asteraceae are the single most diverse family of flowering plants, made up of about 23,000 species. The family includes many popular garden plants and edibles such as daisies, sunflowers, chrysanthemums, lettuce and artichokes.
Because the fossil evidence was scarce researchers were previously unable to explain why such a large family didn't have a longer history; discovering daisies evolved at an earlier time resolves this puzzle.
'Fossil finds like this are hugely important in our task to fill in the gaps of knowledge on the evolution of plants, adding a crucial calibration point to the tree of life. In the case of the Asteraceae family, we can now safely say that the oldest daisies were probably trampled by the last surviving dinosaurs – this would probably come as a great surprise to most gardeners!', explained Luis Palazzesi, Marie Curie Fellow from Kew.
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