The flowering plants and deciduous trees had not appeared.

But in the latter half of the era these appeared in ever increasing multitudes, displacing the lower types and relegating them to a subordinate position.

Unlike the more rapidly changing higher animals these ancient Mesozoic groups of plants have not wholly disappeared, but still survive, mostly in tropical and southern regions or as a scanty remnant in contrast with their once varied and dominant role.
There is every reason to believe that upon the appearance of these higher plants whose flower and fruit afforded a more concentrated and nourishing food, depended largely the evolution of the higher animal life both vertebrate and insect, of the Cenozoic or modern era.
FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: The records of Egypt and Chaldaea extend back at least sixty centuries.].