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Scientists have long thought that the first flowering plant in history would be a land plant. Though a few angiosperms (the scientific name for flowering plants) around today occur in the water, most live on land, and it has been generally assumed that these types of plants evolved on terra firma before radiating back out into the water, says Indiana University paleobotanist David Dilcher. 
  
 But that may not be the case. A paper published August 17 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has identified the oldest flowering plant found to date, an aquatic species fossilized in deposits in modern-day Spain. 
  
 Dilcher and colleagues from France, Germany and Spain have shown that fossils of a plant known as Montsechia vidalii came on the scene between 130 million and 124 million years ago. It’s hypothesized that terrestrial angiosperm had already appeared at the time, although the current find predates any known terrestrial specimens. Montsechia also predates the oldest known angiosperm, Archaefructus, which came in 124.5 million years ago. 
  
 O. Sanisidro, B.G., and V.D.G. / PNAS 
  
 “Flowers are all about sex,” Dilcher says. The great advance of angiosperms was to co-opt the behavior of animals, getting them to carry their pollen to other individuals of their species (wind, of course, can also do the job). This creates more diverse offspring than does self-fertilization, regeneration or the production of asexual spores, which is, for example, how ferns reproduce. But another way to spread your seed, so to speak, is by using water currents, as Montsechia did. And “right at the start [of angiosperm evolution], this was another method that flowering plants were using for their genetic exchange,” Dilcher says. 
  
 Modern-day descendants of Montsechia, known as Ceratophyllum, appear quite similar to their ancient descendants and are found in lakes on every continent. The six existing species release a pollen-containing sac called an anther, which floats to the surface and then ruptures to release pollen grains. These are then carried by currents and, if all goes well, fertilize primitive flowers in other Ceratophyllum plants. These plants lack roots and petals, and have simple, tiny flowers that contain a single seed, according to the study. 
  
 “We don’t know, and it’s difficult to say, that this is the first flower in the world,” Dilcher says. (Though it is the oldest found to date.) These underwater plants almost certainly had a large, and underappreciated, role in the early and subsequent evolution of angiosperms, he adds. 
  
 See all of the best photos of the week in these slideshows 
  
 This study helps “to unravel the evolutionary and ecological events that accompanied the rise of flowering plants to global prominence,” writes Donald Les, a University of Connecticut expert in plant evolution who was not involved in the study, in a commentary in the same journal. ||||| The importance of very early aquatic flowering plants is not well understood currently and is poorly documented. Here we present details of the morphology and reproductive biology of Montsechia, an extremely early fossil angiosperm that, because it is so ancient and is totally aquatic, raises questions centered on the very early evolutionary history of flowering plants. This paper challenges the paradigm of how we view the early evolution of basal angiosperms and particularly the role of aquatic habitats in the very early evolution and diversification of flowering plants. 
  
 Abstract 
  
 The early diversification of angiosperms in diverse ecological niches is poorly understood. Some have proposed an origin in a darkened forest habitat and others an open aquatic or near aquatic habitat. The research presented here centers on Montsechia vidalii, first recovered from lithographic limestone deposits in the Pyrenees of Spain more than 100 y ago. This fossil material has been poorly understood and misinterpreted in the past. Now, based upon the study of more than 1,000 carefully prepared specimens, a detailed analysis of Montsechia is presented. The morphology and anatomy of the plant, including aspects of its reproduction, suggest that Montsechia is sister to Ceratophyllum (whenever cladistic analyses are made with or without a backbone). Montsechia was an aquatic angiosperm living and reproducing below the surface of the water, similar to Ceratophyllum. Montsechia is Barremian in age, raising questions about the very early divergence of the Ceratophyllum clade compared with its position as sister to eudicots in many cladistic analyses. Lower Cretaceous aquatic angiosperms, such as Archaefructus and Montsechia, open the possibility that aquatic plants were locally common at a very early stage of angiosperm evolution and that aquatic habitats may have played a major role in the diversification of some early angiosperm lineages. ||||| A large intact specimen of the fossil, Montsechia. Usually only small fragmentary pieces of the fossil are found. Credit: David Dilcher Indiana University paleobotanist David Dilcher and colleagues in Europe have identified a 125 million- to 130 million-year-old freshwater plant as one of earliest flowering plants on Earth. 
  
 The finding, reported Aug. 17 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, represents a major change in the presumed form of one of the planet's earliest flowers, known as angiosperms. 
  
 "This discovery raises significant questions about the early evolutionary history of flowering plants, as well as the role of these plants in the evolution of other plant and animal life," said Dilcher, an emeritus professor in the IU Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences' Department of Geological Sciences. 
  
 The aquatic plant, Montsechia vidalii, once grew abundantly in freshwater lakes in what are now mountainous regions in Spain. Fossils of the plant were first discovered more than 100 years ago in the limestone deposits of the Iberian Range in central Spain and in the Montsec Range of the Pyrenees, near the country's border with France. 
  
 Also previously proposed as one of the earliest flowers is Archaefructus sinensis, an aquatic plant found in China. 
  
 "A 'first flower' is technically a myth, like the 'first human,'" said Dilcher, an internationally recognized expert on angiosperm anatomy and morphology who has studied the rise and spread of flowering plants for decades. "But based on this new analysis, we know now that Montsechia is contemporaneous, if not more ancient, than Archaefructus." 
  
 Illustrations based on fossilized remains show long- and short-leaved forms of the plant and a single seed. Credit: Oscar Sanisidro 
  
 He also asserted that the fossils used in the study were "poorly understood and even misinterpreted" during previous analyses. 
  
 "The reinterpretation of these fossils provides a fascinating new perspective on a major mystery in plant biology," said Donald H. Les, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Connecticut, who is the author of a commentary on the discovery in the journal PNAS. "David's work is truly an important contribution to the continued quest to unravel the evolutionary and ecological events that accompanied the rise of flowering plants to global prominence." 
  
 The conclusions are based upon careful analyses of more than 1,000 fossilized remains of Montsechia, whose stems and leaf structures were coaxed from stone by applying hydrochloric acid on a drop-by-drop basis. The plant's cuticles—the protective film covering the leaves that reveals their shape—were also carefully bleached using a mixture of nitric acid and potassium chlorate. 
  
 Examination of the specimens was conducted under a stereomicroscope, light microscope and scanning electron microscope. 
  
 The age of the plant at 125 million to 130 million years is based upon comparisons to other fossils in the same area, notably the freshwater algae charophytes, which places Montsechia in the Barremian age of the early Cretaceous period, making this flowering plant a contemporary of dinosaurs such as the brachiosaurus and iguanodon. 
  
 The precise, painstaking analysis of fossilized structures remains crucial to paleobotany, in contrast to other biological fields, due to the current inability to know the molecular characters of ancient plants from millions of years ago, Dilcher said. 
  
 This careful examination was particularly important to Montsechia since most modern observers might not even recognize the fossil as a flowering plant. 
  
 "Montsechia possesses no obvious 'flower parts,' such as petals or nectar-producing structures for attracting insects, and lives out its entire life cycle under water," he said. "The fruit contains a single seed"—the defining characteristic of an angiosperm—"which is borne upside down." 
  
 In terms of appearance, Dilcher said, Montsechia resembles its most modern descendent, identified in the study as Ceratophyllum. Also known as coontails or hornworts, Ceratophyllum is a dark green aquatic plant whose coarse, tufty leaves make it a popular decoration in modern aquariums and koi ponds. 
  
 Next up, Dilcher and colleagues want to understand more about the species connecting Montsechia and Ceratophyllum, as well as delve deeper into when precisely other species of angiosperms branched off from their ancient forefathers. 
  
 "There's still much to be discovered about how a few early species of seed-bearing plants eventually gave rise to the enormous, and beautiful, variety of flowers that now populate nearly every environment on Earth," he said. 
  
 Explore further: Research yields understanding of Darwin's 'abominable mystery' 
  
 More information: Montsechia, an ancient aquatic angiosperm, www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1509241112 
  
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Output:
The world's oldest known flower dating back 130 million years is an aquatic species called Montsechia found fossilized in limestone deposits in Spain. But it wouldn't necessarily be recognized as a flower today, given it didn't boast petals or nectar-producing structures. "The fruit contains a single seed"—thus making it an angiosperm, or flowering plant—"which is borne upside down," says Indiana University paleobotanist David Dilcher, who with colleagues reports these findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The plant thrived in freshwater lakes in what are now Spain's mountainous regions, and while Phys.org reports that the fossils were first discovered more than 100 years ago, the ones used in this study were "poorly understood and even misinterpreted" when analyzed at earlier points, Dilcher says. One way to spread seed—which in angiosperms is typically done by getting other animals (think bees) or elements (think wind) to carry pollen to other members of the same species—is through water currents. In fact today's descendants of Montsechia, called Ceratophyllum, are found in lakes on every continent, and they behave similarly. "Flowers are all about sex,” Dilcher tells Newsweek. "Right at the start [of angiosperm evolution], this was another method that flowering plants were using for their genetic exchange." Whether Montsechia is the world's oldest flower has yet to be determined, but it is the oldest flower we have found to date, suggesting that angiosperms have their earliest roots in water instead of on land. (Michigan officials are warning about a plant that can blind you.)