This is a fascinating book, written in 2002 about anachronisms in the plant world, and their extinct megafaunal partners. An anachronism is a plant whose animal seed dispersal partner has gone extinct, and must now adapt to a different pattern or go extinct themselves. The degree to which a plant is an anachronism can vary- with some plants basically not caring and other plants almost going totally extinct until human intervention. Think of the avocado- it’s pit is huge- no modern animal in its home range can swallow it whole... but the giant ground sloth could have. The ginkgo tree’s original seed dispersal partner might have been a dinosaur it’s so old. All of this, of course is conjecture- we can never prove or disprove most of what is in this book, though many scientists are laying out very persuasive evidence that anachronisms exist. When you consider that horses, camels and elephants once roamed the Americas- you’ll look at the native plants of the continent and wonder, what ghosts live amongst the trees.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 9:48 AM on July 8, 2019 [2 favorites]