In May 2016, experts from the Royal Kew Botanic Garden, in London, published a detailed report on the state of plants in the world. In it they indicated that, at present, of the 391,000 species of known vascular plants -in that same note they warned that 21% are threatened or in danger of extinction , although each year 2,000 more are described-, some 369,000 look flowers , characteristic reproductive structures that adopt different shapes and tonalities.

Despite their great diversity , flowers are a relatively recent evolutionary innovation, at least on a geological scale . This is indicated by an international team of researchers in a new study published in the journal Nature Communications , where they indicate that their most recent common ancestor should have existed between 250 and 140 million years ago . However, the oldest fossils of the same that have been discovered to date are not more than 130 million years old.