Abstract
A recently published review by Herendeen et al. is misleading, self-centered, self-praising, and self-conflicting. They excluded the famous early angiosperm Archaefructus from their list of exemplar angiosperms, which contained only fossil plants they published themselves, leaving the impression that they were only authoritative on the origin and early history of angiosperms. Their 57-year-old “No Angiosperms Until the Cretaceous” conception does not reflect the truth about the origin and early history of angiosperms. Reinforcing such vapidly repeated statement does not help resolving any problem in science but leads to no solution for the origin of angiosperms. The authors tried to establish a criterion identifying a fossil angiosperm but their own exemplar angiosperm Monetianthus overturns their own criterion. Apparently, such a review does not positively contribute much to science.
Highlights
The age of the angiosperms is a question of importance in botany because the answer to this question is hinged to the solution of many problems in various branches of botany
Herendeen et al Set up Bad Examples of Studying Fossil Angiosperms, Misleading Future Palaeobotanists. Their list of “exemplar” early angiosperms is 100% of their own and even named after one of themselves! The motive of such listing is never released to the public, but it is obviously self-centered
Archaefructus has been well-documented by various authors several times [2] [17,18,19], and Sinocarpus has been documented by authors including Friis [20, 21]. Both of them are much older than their so-called “exemplar” early angiosperms listed in the review [1], both Archaefructus and Sinocarpus were either suspected or ignored in the review
Summary
The age of the angiosperms is a question of importance in botany because the answer to this question is hinged to the solution of many problems in various branches of botany. Palaeobotanists are the major group of scientists trying to answer this question. Unlike other botanists working on extant plants, palaeobotanists build their hypotheses mainly based on fossil evidence, not on reasoning, inferring, or imaginations
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