Our clump of the ancient Mexican cycad, Ceratozamia kuesteriana is now flowering, and looking for love. Well, flowering isn’t exactly the most accurate term, since when this species evolved some 16 million years ago, flowering hadn’t yet been invented. Back in the day, most plants still formed cones…think wind pollinated conifers. To ensure cross pollination, each plant is either male or female, so growing just a single clone leads to a lonely life. We actually have two clones, but our only plant currently in flower is female, so we are on the hunt for a lonely male, somewhere out there in the hortiverse. If you happen to know of one that will be dispersing it’s sperm soon, and if your state still allows horticultural IVF’s, please let us know. This is the first coning of our eleven year old specimen.
Sorry to contradict, but according to current research (via RBG Kew; Plants of the World: Chase, Christenhusz, Fay) the earliest flowering plants emerged about 160 million years ago.
Even more complex flowers, such as orchids, show up in the fossil record approx. 80-100 million years ago. This leads to speculation that some flowering plants could have been dinosaur-pollinated!
Interestingly, cycads emerged c. 250 million years ago, but the relatively few modern day representatives that now exist are estimated to have developed only 50-60 million years ago.
Great catch…thanks.
A word of caution, if you have any transgenic cycads keep it on the “down low”, rumor is that ICE will soon be rounding them up to hold in detention in Florida’s Alligator Alcatraz, until they figure out what “transgenic” actually means.