In this chapter we find ourselves 70 million years into the past, still in the time of the dinosaurs and before the flowering of mammalian diversity properly began. Actually, the flowering of flowers themselves had only just begun. Flowering plants, while diverse, had been previously restricted to disturbed habitats such as those uprooted by elephantine dinosaurs or ravaged by fire, but by now had gradually evolved to include a range of forest-canopy trees and understorey bushes.
