Fossilized Chinese plant may be first flower, scientists say

WASHINGTON -- The ancestor of all the grains, fruits and blossoms of the modern world may have been a fragile water plant that lived in a Chinese lake 125 million years ago.

The plant, called Archaefructus sinensis for "ancient fruit from china," is of a species never before seen and carries the clear characteristics of the most primitive of flowering plants, said David Dilcher of the Florida Museum of Natural History and the University of Florida.

"It is like the mother of all flowering plants," said Dilcher, co-author of a study appearing today in the journal Science. "It changes our whole impression of what is the oldest of all flowering plants."

Botanists had long considered a woody plant from New Caledonia as the most ancient of flowering plants. Dilcher said the new discovery precedes that species.