Flowering plants are angiosperms, meaning enclosed seeds. Their seeds develop inside an ovary; the same structure that becomes fruit.
Plant reproduction evolved form seedless to seeded to flowers and fruits. So, plants like mosses and ferns evolved by 500 million years ago. By 400 million years ago, seed plants, like Ginkgo trees and later pines and palms, evolved. By 130 million years ago, we got our first flowers; technically that’s also when we got our first fruits too. But, adding flesh to fruit evolved slowly. Citrus, apple, and peach trees evolved after the K-Pg extinction event but have evolutionary roots going back about 80 million years.
Anyway, we know angiosperms existed by 130 million years ago. That places us in the Early Cretaceous, the final period in the reign of the dinosaurs. To picture this time, imagine forests filled with conifers, cycads, and ferns that would look both familiar and strange. Low to the ground near water grew small flowering plants with tiny, inconspicuous blossoms. Their colors are lost to time, but they probably blended into a landscape dominated by green, brown, and beige.
Although these early flowers still relied largely on the wind for pollination, insects also carried pollen from proto-flower to proto-flower. And, the truth is, insects were accidentally carrying pollen between plants long before flowers evolved. The earliest flowers were accidental attractors of bugs, an accident that set off a chain of evolution culminating in an array of vibrant flowers and tasty fruit.
The K–Pg extinction event 66 million years ago killed most life. When the dust cleared, the survivors, including flowers and birds, inherited a transformed world.
