Data from: A metacalibrated time-tree documents the early rise of flowering plant phylogenetic diversity

The establishment of modern terrestrial life is indissociable from
angiosperm evolution. While available molecular clock estimates of
angiosperm age range from the Paleozoic to the Late Cretaceous, the fossil
record is consistent with angiosperm diversification in the Early
Cretaceous. The time-frame of angiosperm evolution is here estimated using
a sample representing 87% of families and sequences of five plastid and
nuclear markers, implementing penalized likelihood and Bayesian relaxed
clocks. A literature-based review of the palaeontological record yielded
calibrations for 137 phylogenetic nodes. The angiosperm crown age was
bound within a confidence interval calculated with a method that considers
the fossil record of the group. An Early Cretaceous crown angiosperm age
was estimated with high confidence. Magnoliidae, Monocotyledoneae and
Eudicotyledoneae diversified synchronously 135–130 million yr ago (Ma);
Pentapetalae is 126–121 Ma; and Rosidae (123–115 Ma) preceded Asteridae
(119–110 Ma). Family stem ages are continuously distributed between c. 140
and 20 Ma. This time-frame documents an early phylogenetic proliferation
that led to the establishment of major angiosperm lineages, and the origin
of over half of extant families, in the Cretaceous. While substantial
amounts of angiosperm morphological and functional diversity have deep
evolutionary roots, extant species richness was probably acquired later.