Flowers

In geological time flowers have not been around long; in human time they have been around for a good long time. With the advent of flowers the Earth began to look like the good old Earth we know. Things began to look better in the Cretaceous Period. (I think the cretaceous has something to do with chalk, but I have a lot to learn about that Period). There were still a lot of dinosaurs around then, but flowering plants did appear and diversify into the main flowering plant families we know today. Flowering was was really happening toward the end of the Mesozoic Era around 1335,000,000 before the present, plus or minus about 5,000,000 (What's the difference between a Period and an Era?).

Then, just as things seemed to be going very well, about 65,000,000 BP, an extraterrestrial object struck the Earth and ended the Period, the Era, and most of the dinosaurs. I believe that some of the dinosaurs survived as dragons, birds, lizards, snakes, and like that. The flowers survived better than the dinosaurs. It seems that flowers, like women, are tougher than they look.

The aftershock of that strike, which knocked the Earth out of the Mesozoic Era into the Cenozoic Era, seems to have lasted about 40,000,000 years because about 25,000,000 years ago the 'Laramide Revolution' so shook the Earth that it brought up what is now the state of New Mexico from the bottom of the sea, beginning a period of world-wide volcanism.

About 20,000,000 BP, in a blaze of glory, the Pleiades were born:

            There is a piece of the moon in an apple,

            A bit of the sun in a rose,

            A part of the flaming Pleiades in every blades of grass that blows.

I guess flowers have star stuff in them too.

For perspective, humans, it seems have only been around for about 200,000 years, and we have probably been acting like humans for less than half that time.