Montsechia vidalii: World-Oldest Flowering Plant From Northeast Spain

Mountains emerge as Spain’s dominant landforms. Central Spain’s Iberian Range and northeast Spain’s Pyrenean Range in fact furnish fossils of the fluffy, freshwater, frondy Montsechia vidalii. The genus nevertheless gives special emphasis to the aquatic plant’s fossilization in the fine-grained lithographic limestone deposits of the Montsec Range in the Pyrenees Mountain foothills.

The aquatic plant’s bio-geography has the mountainous area’s configuration as extensive lakes during the Cretaceous Period of 66,000,000 to 145,000,000 years ago to thank for its preservation. It is comparison of 1,000 fragmented and intact fossils with ancient Spain’s famous, freshwater algae -- called charophytes (from the ancient Greek words χαρά [khara, “joy”] and φυτό [phyto, “plant”]) -- that inspires dating to 130,000,000 years ago. 

Paleobotanists judge as compelling and convincing as comparison dating with well-known, well-understood flora the meticulous subjection of Montsechia vidalii’s leaf and stem structures to hydrochloric acid treatments and high-resolution microscopic examinations. They now know that Montsechia vidalii most accurately is described as:

• nurturing long shoots with either long- or short-leaved growth patterns;
• possessing fruiting seeds borne upside down;
• resembling Ceratophyllum, the dark green coontail or hornwort whose coarse, tufty leaves make it beloved by and integral to lovers of aquaria and ornamental ponds and of temperate and tropical marshes and streams.

The knowledge leads to important realizations regarding flowering plant emergence locations and time a century after Montsechia vidalii’s original discovery and subsequent rejection as unhelpfully weedlike. 

Paleobotanists typically mention forests or waters as the emergence sites for flowering plants. But the fragrance-less, nectar-less, petal-less, sepal-less Montsechia vidalii nudges flowering plant origins more toward niches within aquatic than sylvan habitats, per expert investigations and publications by:

• Clément Coiffard;
• Véronique Daviero-Gomez;
• David L. Dilcher;
• Bernard Gomez;
• Carles Martín-Closas.

Artistic depictions and scientific interpretations indeed operate persuasively regarding Montsechia vidalii’s stems as sheltering female (pistillate) and male (staminate) flowering parts necessary to creating and spreading seeds for:

• fertilizing nearby plants;
• guaranteeing future generations.

Montsechia vidalii additionally provides twenty-first century Earthlings with an even earlier dating than the previous claimant to the title of the world’s first flower: the 125,000,000-year-old Archaefructus sinensis from northeast China’s Yixian Formation. 

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Montsechia vidalii: illustrations based on fossilized remains show long- and short-leaved forms of the plant and a single seed.
artwork by Oscar Sanisidro Morant, paleontologist, naturalistic and scientific illustrator, and 2D and 3D artist: No usage restrictions, via EurekAlert! @ https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/915729

Montsechia vidalii: large intact specimen of the fossil; usually only small fragmentary pieces of are found.
image credit: Bernard Gomez, co-author of Montsechia vidalii findings: No usage restrictions, via EurekAlert! @ https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/915728

Emeritus Professor David Dilcher: co-author of Montsechia vidalii findings and expert on prehistoric plants
David Dilcher: Indiana University, No usage restrictions, via EurekAlert! @ https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/915730

"Paleobotanists identify what could be the mythical 'first flower'" (2:15)
Uploaded Aug, 18, 2015, by Star News to YouTube ~ URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c94HMKjTZjw

Comparisons with charophytes, freshwater green algae with fossil record dating back to Silurian (443.8–419.2 million years ago), facilitated dating of Montsechia vidalii to 130,000,000 years ago, within the Cretaceous period (145.5 and 65.5 mya).
charophyte (Charophyta spp.) reproductive structure; rice field, Tanabe, Wakayama prefecture, south central Honshu, Japan; Tuesday, November 15, 2005, 14:58: Keisotyo, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chara_sp_reproductive_structure.JPG

Montsechia vidalii, possibly the world's oldest flower, hails from the Montsec Range of the Pre-Pyrenees, foothills of the Pyrenees mountain range separating the Iberian Peninsula from France.
view of Montsec Range from Talarn, Pallars Jussà, northwestern Catalonia, northeastern Spain
Pallares1, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Serra_montsec.JPG

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