130 mn year old mythical first flower identified

New York: An international team of paleobotanists have identified a 125-130 million year old freshwater plant as one of earliest flowering plants on Earth. This aquatic plant named Montsechia vidalii once grew abundantly in freshwater lakes in what are now mountainous regions in Spain.

Fossils of the plant were first discovered more than 100 years ago in the limestone deposits of the Iberian Range in central Spain and in the Montsec Range of the Pyrenees, near the country's border with France. In terms of appearance, Montsechia resembles its most modern descendent, identified in the study as Ceratophyllum.

Also known as coontails or hornworts, Ceratophyllum is a dark green aquatic plant whose coarse, tufty leaves make it a popular decoration in modern aquariums and koi ponds. The conclusions are based upon careful analyses of more than 1,000 fossilised remains of Montsechia.

The stems and leaf structures were coaxed from stone by applying hydrochloric acid on a drop-by-drop basis. The age of the plant at 125-130 million years is based upon comparisons to other fossils in the same area notably the freshwater algae charophytes. Montsechia possesses no obvious “flower parts” such as petals or nectar-producing structures for attracting insects and lives out its entire life cycle under water.