Learning to See is Hard, 4
Angiosperm, possibly 99 million years old, encased in amber, from Myanmar
The World in Color
The flowering plant or angiosperm, as the botanist might refer to it, took over the plant world in a relatively short period of time. Today these flowering plants outnumber the ferns and cone bearing trees, which were around millions of years before any flower joined the community. The angiosperm numbers more than 200,000 species.
Angiosperm comes from the Greek word angeion and means “capsule” and “seed.” All the flowering plants enclose their seeds in fruit. The fruit has hollow chambers (carpels) that protect the seeds. Think of mammals, where the young grow inside the mother.
The flowering plant, unlike an animal, can’t pick up and walk off to another location to set up a new community. They were stuck in one place but had to insure that the species would spread to other areas and continue to expand and develop. This is where plant creativity demonstrated its ability.
Flowering plants going through the evolutionary “street and alleys” finally got others to transport their genetic mterial to different locations. While these changes occurred over millions of years, the reproductive speed of many angiosperms probably made it easier for them to evolve faster than their competitors. Regardless, they came up with some remarkable ways of getting other species to help insure their survival.
Most flowers are hermaphroditic, meaning they have both male and female parts. It’s more than likely that one of the principal reasons human agriculture developed early in the Fertile Crescent (which today includes Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Egypt and parts of Kuwait, Turkey and Iran) was the large percentage of edible hermaphroditic plants that were able to pollinate themselves and thus make domestication of these plants—like wheat—easier for humans. But much more about this later.
Deadly Nightshade, poisonous plant
A Slight Digression and a Brief Thought on Connectomics
The article appeared in the NYT and was, in part about Drosophila melanogaster, just your run-of-the-mill fruit fly. Scientists have been studying the fruit fly for a long time, first begun by Thomas Hunt Morgan a hundred years ago.
The fruit fly is far more complex than most of us could ever imagine. It has 100,000 neurons and tens of millions of connections or synapses. Scientist now have detailed diagrams of the fly’s brain, its wiring in other words. Understanding this basic neural circuitry in our “lowly” fruit fly just might give us some important clues to how other animal brains approach similar problems, including humans. This is the new science of Connectomics.
The fruit fly itself deserve our attention for a number of reasons, most important is that it tells us about our very real connection to everything else. We humans are not remotely separate and apart … or special. Something like 75 percent of our identified disease causing genes have been identified in fruit flies, diseases like cancer, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s disease.
All life shares a common ancestor, where our DNA ultimately came from. The Pax 6 gene regulates eye development and is similar in flies, mice and us. After alcohol exposure flies become hyperactive, then uncoordiated, and then pass out—virtually identical to humans. Fruit flies have been invaluable in uncovering genes that could help us explain the complexities of addiction.
There are other similar examples but the central idea that we humans need to understand is that we are part of all life on this planet and our survival is very much dependent on understanding this point. This is the challenge and the problem we need to solve.
Yes, billionaires can dream of leaving our ill world and travel to lands far, far away. “Futurists” can guess what we humans will be like some day, but perhaps spending less time time dwelling on humans with rewired brains and overly intelligent children and more time on what Earth might be like if we get beyond ourselves.
Oh So Clever
The fact of the matter is that the plant doesn’t leave much to chance. In addition to those plants that are hermaphroditic, there are plants that are both hermaphroditic but can sometimes cross-pollinate, and there are plants that have separate female and male parts that depend on another for pollination. Finally, there are plants, like the sweet potato, that reproduce without sex: The plant’s root is able to make a carbon copy of the parent plant.
Pollen, the plant’s genetic material, can be spread by the wind and end up on another compatible plant, but that’s like keeping your fingers crossed and hoping for the best. The flowering plant kept evolving into something much more efficient, which would take us up to around 95 million years ago.
That something was the petal. This is what attracted the insects; depending on the particular insect, it might be lured by the petal’s color, its shape, its smell and or its taste. Botanists believe that 70 to 100 million years ago the number of flowering plants increased dramatically.
Lavender
The insect pollinators were attracted to these various petals, and the angiosperm’s reproduction took off. In the process known as coevolution the insect got the nectar that tasted so good and the flower got pollen dispersal. The percentages were now in the plant’s favor; the insect would deliver the pollen to a compatible flower.
They’re here
We’ve reached the point where we now can’t forget the dinosaur. They munched on flowers that tasted good and delivered seed unwittingly to various locations through their digestive tract. Considering the size of some of these dinosaurs, they probably made some large deliveries. By the time the dinosaur died out some 65 million years ago, the mammals were ready to take their place and coevolution continued with new variations and new methods. The flowering plant was now well established, with a thriving and influential society of its own. Shortly, in relative time, we arrive, humans that is. This is when things get truly interesting.
In Short or Not So Short
The seed plants have created to a large extent life on Earth as we humans know it. Soils, forests, and food are three of the most obvious results. Our clothing (fibers) came from flowering plants, and many of our drugs still do, recreational and otherwise. WEEDS have yet to be discovered, but with our raucous arrival, we soon hear the mumbling about “those” weeds. Who are they? Where do they live? Who do they think they are? Why can’t they do what’s best for the community? After all, it’s, so obvious. Isn’t it?
The People of the People"s Trail
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Walter, I enjoyed your post. I'm reading a fascinating book about seashells. The sound of the sea by Barnett. Lots of evolution discussion.