Poaceae

A densely sampled plastid phylogeny resolves major grass lineages and maps multiple C4 origins onto that tree; it does not date the Poaceae fossil first appearance or imply one ancestral C4 transition.

The sampled plastid phylogeny resolves major grass lineages and maps multiple C4 origins, but its reconstructed topology does not date Poaceae or imply one ancestral C4 transition.

The late-Cretaceous grass evidence used here is confined to diagnostic phytolith morphotypes in Lameta Formation dinosaur coprolites in central India; it does not identify a geographic origin or global distribution of grasses.

Fourteen central Great Plains palaeosol phytolith assemblages record a regional rise of chloridoid and other potentially C4 PACMAD grasses within heterogeneous mixed C3–C4 habitats; this does not establish global open-grassland dominance.

Latest-Cretaceous Lameta coprolites preserve phytolith morphotypes interpreted as diagnostic of grasses and assigned to at least five living-grass subclades; these microscopic remains are not a complete grass body plan.

Poaceae is displayed at 67–0 Ma only as a latest-Cretaceous-phytolith-to-living navigation anthology: diagnostic Lameta coprolite phytoliths support grass presence but do not establish a body-fossil FAD, exact crown origin or uninterrupted global range.