Seeds and fruits of Early Cretaceous (Barremian‐Aptian) angiosperms from the Famalicão locality in Portugal were analyzed to establish seed and fruit size (volume) distributions and to infer the proportion of animal‐dispersed fruits. On the basis of a sample of 106 angiosperm fruit and seed taxa, the average seed size was 0.78 mm3 (range 0.02–6.86 mm3), whereas the average fruit size was 2.06 mm3 (range 0.12–8.34 mm3). Variation in seed size among taxa is smaller than in modern plant communities, but within‐taxon variation is similar to that known for extant plants. No significant difference in the size of “fleshy” versus other fruits was observed. The proportion of fleshy fruits was 24.5%. This high figure was surprising and indicates that the significance of animal dispersal during an early stage in angiosperm evolution has been underestimated. We suggest that reptiles and multituberculates, and perhaps other mammals and birds as well, were the likely seed dispersers and that the early angiosperms from Famalicão probably were herbs or small shrubs that inhabited a semiopen coniferous woodland.

中文翻译：

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来自葡萄牙 Famalicão 的早白垩世被子植物的种子大小和传播系统

分析了来自葡萄牙 Famalicão 地区的早白垩世（Barremian-Aptian）被子植物的种子和果实，以确定种子和果实的大小（体积）分布并推断动物分散果实的比例。基于 106 个被子植物果实和种子类群的样本，平均种子大小为 0.78 mm3（范围 0.02-6.86 mm3），而平均果实大小为 2.06 mm3（范围 0.12-8.34 mm3）。分类群之间种子大小的变异小于现代植物群落，但分类群内的变异与现存植物已知的相似。观察到“肉质”与其他水果的大小没有显着差异。肉质水果的比例为24.5%。这个高数字令人惊讶，表明在被子植物进化的早期阶段动物传播的重要性被低估了。