The first Portuguese flowers.

The first plants with flowers (Angiosperms) appeared only in the Lower Cretaceous. Their pollens are known since the Hauterivian (130 million years ago), but the first macro remains were only found in the Aptian-Albian (120 million years ago). The Portuguese outcrop of Cereal (Torres Vedras) is one of the most ancient places in the world containing these fossils.

They were small plants, living near rivers and lakes and fossilized in sediments containing fish and ostracod remains.

These fossils were studied by Saporta (1894) and later by C. Teixeira (Memoirs of the Geol. Serv. Portugal 1948).