Reconstructing the evolutionary history of the grape family

Until now, it was believed that plants of the grape family arrived at the European continent less than 23 million years ago. A study on fossil plants draws a new scenario on the dispersal of the ancestors of grape plants and reveals that these species were already on the territory of Europe some 41 million years ago. The paper describes a new fossil species of the same family, Nekemias mucronata, which allows us to better understand the evolutionary history of this plant group, which inhabited Europe between 40 and 23 million years ago.