Inland, the marshlands were divided by a landscape decorated by the usual conifers, ferns and podocarps, the first flowering plants adding colour where before all was brown and green. These flowering plants soon dominated the landscape, within lush, dense forests of southern beech, pines, redwoods and Araucaria trees. Aphids, bees and wasps began to fill the air in thick swarms, providing a plentiful food supply for the flocks of birds already establishing themselves. The earliest known fossil flower was found in the Wealden Formation sediments of southern England. During the Early Cretaceous period, southern England was a low-lying, richly vegetated river floodplain.
