花朵“始祖”长啥样?像白莲花和白百合结合体_时事

花朵“始祖”长啥样?像白莲花和白百合结合体

The first flower is reconstructed with petal-like structures arranged in a whorl, so each petal appears in the same plane, like a common lily (but with more whorls), rather than in a spiral, where petals overlap in a spiral arrangement around the stem, like a lotus.

第一朵鲜花被重构成齿轮状排列的花瓣状结构，像一朵常见的百合（但花瓣更多），所有花瓣出现在同一个平面里，而非像莲花一样花瓣围绕花茎重叠呈螺旋状排列。

"For some of the features we studied, the result was surprising, especially the fact that organs (such as sepals and petals and the stamens) were probably arranged in whorls instead of spirals, as commonly assumed for the ancestral flower," said Hervé Sauquet.

埃尔韦•索凯说：“关于鲜花始祖特征的一些研究结果让我们感到意外，特别是它的器官(如萼片、花瓣、雄蕊)可能是齿轮状排列的，而并非是人们通常认为的螺旋状”。

Sex evolution in flowers has been highly debated. Flowers can be unisexual or bisexual and this study infers a bisexual early flower with both male and female organs.

花的性进化一直备受争议，鲜花可以是单性或双性的。这项研究推断花卉祖先是两性的，同时拥有雄性和雌性器官。

"This study is important as it tells us how complicated the ancestral flower is likely to be - now the search is on to find it or something closely resembling it in the fossil record. That's if the model is correct - only time (and further study) will tell," said Jason Hilton.