In article ,
ByoBlu wrote:

"Inyo" wrote in message
. com...
There were no grasses back then--and flowering plants were nonexistent

Why is it so important the existance of flowering plants?

Almost all the plants you see around you these days, aside from ferns,
mosses and conifers, are flowering plants. The flowers may not be very
obvious, but they are there. Essentially all crops, including grains,
are flowering plants. The technical term is angiosperms.

Plant life was dominated by Sphenopsids
(horsetails) ferns, tree ferns, seed ferns, conifers (araucarians),
ginkgoes (still living today, of course), cycads, and cycadoids.

Any of them could be eaten?

I don't know what araucarian seeds are like, but people and other
mammals eat the seeds of other conifers, notably pine "nuts". The
seeds of ginkgoes are very tasty. The young sprouts of some ferns are
edible, but IIRC, it's not a good idea to eat a whole lot of them,
since they contain carcinogens.

Do you think if someone could take with himself modern vegetables seeds,
would they grow in that clima and atmosphere composition?

Sure, why not. Of course, it would depend on where you are. A lot of
modern vegetables won't mature where I live right now and those that
will have to be planted at the right time. I don't recall whether the
Jurassic was one of those eras with a more uniform climate than the
present, but some temperate climate vegetables won't grow in the
lowland tropics right now. As has been mentioned, vegetables which
require insect pollination will need to be hand-pollinated to set seed.

As for your story, most people are unable to identify an edible wild
plant even in areas they've lived in for decades. Even people who are
very knowledgable about an area would have a hard time in one strange
to them, and 200 Mya, with almost no familiar families of plants
around, they will starve if they expect to just drop in and eat a
vegetarian diet. Hunter-gatherers with many generations of
experimentation and experience with their climate and environment still
experienced famines. So your characters will have to eat fish,
amphibians and reptiles. Hm, skip the amphibians -- a number of modern
ones are lethally toxic. Turtle soup, perhaps, stewed mammal-like
reptile, and find out if those famous chicken-sized dinosaurs also
taste like chicken. At least you won't have to pluck them.

I don't know how you plan to get your characters to the Jurassic era,
but note that tomato seeds can pass through the human digestive system
undamaged, so a character who ate some raw tomato before time
travelling might well carry a supply of seeds without realizing it.
Watermelons too, I think. Probably other seeds but we usually don't
swallow them.

Have fun writing your story!