Charles Darwin famously declared that the origin of flowering plants was an "abominable mystery": The highly modified structure and reproductive habits of the angiosperms set them apart from all other plants and, until recently, confounded attempts to identify the common ancestor of roses, grasses and oak trees. However, Darwin's adage might equally well have been applied to many other plant and animal groups with specialized and idiosyncratic anatomy or an incomplete fossil record.
展开▼
