Else Marie Friis looks so quiet, elegant and graceful with her neat, short hair and pale blue skirt that one would never guess from her appearance that she is one of the leading palaeobotanists in the world today.

Friis, a Danish scientist working in Sweden, and the first foreign woman to become an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), as well as being its youngest foreign member, delivered a keynote lecture earlier this month in Beijing as a part of the 12th CAS Academician Conference.

In her report titled "Innovation in the Early Cretaceous Floras," Friis gave a detailed account of her main research findings in the area of palaeobotany.

The focus on her research is the origin, early evolution and radiation of angiosperms and the impact of angiosperm radiation on the Earth's ecosystems.

Palaeobotany is the study of plants through geological time. To understand processes going on today it is important to understand the past, she told China Daily by e-mail.

The findings of palaeobotanical studies are increasingly being used in other biological and geological disciplines to understand evolutionary rates in various plant groups, evolution of key characteristics, patterns of distribution and dispersal of plants in modern vegetation, and many other fundamental questions, she said.

Friis became a foreign member of CAS in 2002 and, now in her 50s, she is the youngest of China's more than 40 foreign academicians.

She said that she was very excited and felt especially honored when she heard that she had been elected a foreign member of the academy two years ago.

"I was very happy, because I feel a strong link to China, and proud because my Chinese colleagues found me worthy of this honor. But I also felt humble, because I feel I have done so little for the development of Chinese science; it is my hope that I can make more contributions in the future."

In addition to being the first chairwoman of the International Organization of Palaeobotany, and also head of the palaeobotany department at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, in Stockholm. Friis was also elected academician of three other nations, namely Denmark, Sweden and Norway.

Friis told Xinhua after her speech at the CAS conference that this was her sixth trip to China.

During her previous visits she has been to several research institutions to discuss scientific projects and questions of mutual interest with many Chinese colleagues and she has given lectures to Chinese students at various levels.

She hopes that she can contribute more to strengthening Chinese science and the nation's collaboration in the international science arena.

On the website of the Swedish Museum of Natural History, she elaborates on her current research into angiosperms in North America, Europe and Kazakhstan.

She points out that flowering plants, or angiosperms, to use the academic term, dominate the earth's vegetation, making up about 85 percent of total living plant species.

According to her research, the earliest fossils with indisputable angiosperm features are from the Early Cretaceous age (about 130 million years ago), but phylogenetic studies indicate that the group may have evolved as early as the Triassic period, more than 200 million years ago, or even earlier.

"Despite uncertainties over the time of origin, fossil evidence shows that flowering plants rose to dominance during the mid-Cretaceous," she said.

Until recently, modern scientists' knowledge of the early diversification of flowering plants was based solely on the fossil records of leaves and pollen.

"During the last few years the discovery of beautifully preserved fossil flowers and dispersed fruits, seeds and stamens has provided an invaluable source of data on the organization and phylogeny of early angiosperms," she explains on the website.

"These early fossils are often preserved as charcoalifications formed from vegetation fires.

"The flowers may have all their parts preserved, and pollen grains are frequently discovered in stamens or on fruits, providing an important link to the dispersed pollen flora."

According to Friis, the first major find of well-preserved flowers was from the Late Cretaceous (Santonian/Campanian) of Scania, in southern Sweden.

She pointed out that this material includes many flowers of what the researchers call eudicots, a subgroup of flowering plants, some clearly adapted for insect pollination.

In addition to the Swedish material she and her colleagues have also collected numerous fossil flora with similar angiosperm flowers from Cretaceous strata in North America (Potomac Group sediments) and in Portugal (Estremadura and Beira Litoral).

"Our new material covers most of the Cretaceous, including the critical period in which flowering plants diversified. Our oldest samples are from the Early Cretaceous (Barremian or Aptian) of Portugal, and our youngest samples are from the Late Cretaceous period also from Portugal."

Friss writes that she and her colleagues now aim to investigate the origin and early evolution of this important group through the study of exquisitely preserved fossil flowers from Cretaceous strata of Europe and North America.

"The main aims of the project are to describe the fossil material and to establish the systematic affinities of the fossils, as well as establishing the timing of major events in the evolution of the flowers and flowering plant reproductive biology," she writes.

Friis said she had also been working on a committee set up by the Swedish research funding authorities to enhance collaboration between Sweden and Asia. This programme helps to increase scientific exchange between China and Sweden and several research networks have already been initiated as part of this program.

Friis's Chinese colleague, Academician Zhou Zhiyan, who is also a prestigious palaeobotanist in China, said currently there are less than 100 people working in the field of palaeobotany in China, which is not enough to cope with the demand of its future development.

Friis acknowledges that China has abundant material of scientific value, and that there is a great potential for developing the field further in China in collaboration with scientists from other countries.

She emphasizes that it is important to train more young people and to further international exchange.

Together with Zhou, Friis already participates in the training and building of networks, but this is an area that should be developed further and have high priority in the future.

Zhou also expressed his hope that China's younger generations will attach more importance to the basic subjects of natural science such as palaeobotany and not allow themselves to be lured away into more popular fields.

(China Daily June 24, 2004)