Using 1.8 billion letters of genetic code from more than 9,500 species covering almost 8,000 known flowering plant genera (ca. 60%), this incredible achievement sheds new light on the evolutionary history of flowering plants and their rise to ecological dominance on Earth. The major milestone for plant science, led by Kew and involving 138 organizations internationally, was built on 15 times more data than comparable studies. Across all 9,506 species sequenced, more than 3,400 came from material sourced from 163 herbaria in 48 countries