Patterns of evolution of Gondwana floras and origin of angiosperms

Abstract

Evolution is the montage of patterns and micro-patterns of organism’s lineages woven in any array of harmonized system through time. The gaps or overlappings in patterns appear to exist in this composite picture because of the lack of interconnecting information, or due to our view-point to look at the available information. The only character which defines angiosperms, exclusively and discretely, is the double fertilization; it cannot be found in fossil sate. The conclusion that the flowering plants suddenly upsurged in the Late Cretaceous is based on negative evidences of non-finding of such fossils which must match with the extant forms. The Gondwanaland had been the land of environmental stresses and the Permo-Triassic boundary had witnessed major evolutionary shifts in plant life. The micro-patterns, controlled by genetic material had manifested in the pollen morphology which are recorded in the Late Permian pollen. The molecular data also indicate a long pre-Cretaceous history for angiosperms. This period much before the breaking and drifting of the continents of the Gondwanaland had witnessed the divergence in patterns which record the initiation of the origin of flowering plants, because the monophyletic origin support their several first-appearance on ‘rafting’ islands in isolation.