'World's earliest flower' found in northeast China
Researchers say the Euanthus panii existed during the Jurassic period, more than 160 million years ago
Researchers working in northeast China have found what could be the world's earliest flower.
According to a paper published in the latest issue of Historical Biology, an international journal of paleobiology based in the UK, the plant is 162 million years old.
The discovery provides a "new insight otherwise unavailable for the evolution of flowers", according to the paper's two authors, professor Liu Zhongjian of the National Orchid Conservation Centre of China and Professor Wan Xin of the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology.
If the authors' claims are true, the Euanthus panii would be the first flowering plant ever found from the Jurassic period (199.6 to 145.5 million years ago), the golden age of dinosaurs.
The race to find the earliest flower has not been short on controversy. For more than a cenutry, many have claimed to have discovered a Jurassic flower, but samples have failed to pass later examinations or win acceptance from mainstream botanists.
Previously, the earliest widely-accepted flower was the Callianthus dilae, also found in China, which dates from the Early Cretaceous period, roughly 125 million years ago.
