Aptian Stage

The Aptian (125–113 Ma) is the fifth age of the Early Cretaceous, occurring after the Barremian, and before the Albian.

Geologic Age

  • 125.0–113.0 Ma

Eon / Era / Period / Epoch

What happened during this time?

  • Angiosperms spread to the under-story floodplains.

  • One of earliest known angiosperms, Archaefructus appears

    • Herbaceous, aquatic plant (125 Ma)

    • Carpels and stamens produced on elongate stem

      • The structures lack petals or sepals

      • Stamens proximal; carpals distal

      • Is the elongate stem in Archaefructus the receptacle of a single flower (with many carpals/stamens), or an inflorescence with many apetalous flowers?

    • Depending on the above answer, Archaefructus may not be basal within angiosperms

      • Close to Nymphaeales or basal eudicots.

  • Potomacapnos apeleutheron, a eudicot from the Aptian, is also one of the oldest angiosperms (Jud and Hickey 2013)

    • The fossil most closely resembles a modern subfamily of poppies, called the Fumarioideae

    • The eudicots are thought to be more derived, which may push back the origin of angiosperms to the very beginning of the Cretaceous

  • Earliest evidence of filmy ferns (Hymenophyllaceae) from ~120 Ma (Herrera et al. 2017)