asey K Remillard 9-28-10 The Rise of Sunflowers
This article is about a new fossil found in South America. This fossil suggests that daises, sunflowers and chrysanthemums originated in South A merica more than 47 million years ago. The sunflower family, also known as t he Compositae or Asteraceae, has many plants considered in i ts family. The daisy, chrysanthemum, and sunflower are only a few of the 23,000 other wild species. This family of plants is very useful to humans. This family allows h umans to enjoy eating lettuce and even artichokes. This family of sunflowers is found today on every continent but Antarctica, only because of i ts low temperature and high elevation areas. The sunflower family is not a live at extreme temperature or high elevation areas. No one knows exactly where the sunflower first family evolved or even how i t spread to other places. However, because this fossil was found researchers now have a new lead on these questions. This is very rare that t hey found fossils of this family because there are relatively few fossils found before. One of the fossils was well preserved and i t will open up great new research on the history of the sunflower family and it adds evidence that the sunflower family originated in southern South America about 47 to 50 million years ago.
K asey Remillard 9-28-10
Citation: BREV IA Eocene Patagonia Fossils of the Daisy Family V. D. Barreda, L. Palazzesi, M. C. Tellera, L. Katinas, J. V. Crisci, K. Bremer, M . G. Passalia, R. Corsolini, R. Rodrguez Brizuela, and F. Bechis (24 September 2010) Science 329 (5999), 1621. [DOI: 10.1126/science.1193108]