By Liz Kimbrough After the first flower bloomed on the Earth, flowering plants evolved a staggering diversity and now make up about 90% of all plant life. Charles Darwin called this rapid domination an “abominable mystery.” A study published today, April 24, in the journal Nature and led by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, unveiled the most comprehensive understanding of the evolutionary history of flowering plants to date. The research, which analyzed 1.8 billion letters of genetic code from more than 9,500 species, clears up some of the mystery surrounding the rise of flowering plants. Much l…