Home » Plants & Animals » North American Wildflowers » A Brief History of Flowers

A Brief History of Flowers

© Gregg Pasterick

You ever wonder where wildflowers came from in the first place? Their evolution? Yeah, me neither, but I was out all night watching the peak of the Leonid meteor shower, and I’m having a hard time stringing together syllables, never mind sentences. The story of wildflowers, or more precisely flowering plants, is pretty straight forward, and certainly appropriate subject matter here so...

Flowering plants, or angiosperms, are believed to have evolved from a now-extinct group of plants called gymnosperms. (Gymnosperms are naked-seed plants, and include conifers.) Flowering plants appear suddenly in the fossil record, around 100 million years ago, about the time dinosaurs were falling prey to a comet, or bad hygiene or whatever wiped ‘em out. Numerous genera seem to have suddenly appeared at the same time, some of which were very similar to our modern species.

It is generally believed angiosperms originated on the less fertile hills and uplands of tropical areas as the lower, more fertile areas had ferns, gymnosperms and other types of plants elbowing each other aside for space to thrive. Over time the flowering plants spread into the lowlands, where they became the dominant plants.

About 250,000 different species of angiosperms are known today. They include not only plants with our beloved conspicuous wildflowers, but trees such oak, willow, elm, and maple, all fruits and vegetables, nuts, herbs, cacti, coconut, corn, wheat, rice and other grains and grasses. And they have two, interrelated structures that separate them from all other plants: the flower and the fruit.

Flowers evolved as a device by which plants trick insects into transporting their pollen to other flowers (and possibly saving them having to evolve legs, a fashion sense, and dating).

The most primitive flowers likely resembled hepatica, a lovely spring wildflower. It has numerous floral parts, each distinctly separate from the others. By comparing these with a daisy or an orchid, it is possible to observe the four primary trends in flower evolution.

These trends are:
1) A reduction in floral parts. - Many specialized flowers have fewer stamens and carpels (or pistils), and always in a definite number.

2) Fusion of floral parts - Petals and carpels, in particular, have become fused, sometimes in elaborate fashion.

3) Elevation of floral parts above the ovary - In primitive flowers, the floral parts rise from the base of the ovary. These ovaries are referred to as superior. In more advanced flowers the floral parts are above the ovary. These ovaries are referred to as inferior.

The copyright of the article A Brief History of Flowers in North American Wildflowers is owned by . Permission to republish A Brief History of Flowers in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.