The Evolution of Plants

Plants compete with one another for sunlight, water, and other necessities of life. Some
plants are better able than others to grow and reproduce. After thousands of years, those that
survive may differ greatly from their ancestors. The surviving plants have adapted to their
environment through a process called natural selection or the survival of the fittest.
The first land plants appeared on earth over 430 million years ago during the Paleozoic
Era. These plants were very simple and did not resemble any of the plants we see today. They
probably had a sticklike plant body and lacked the specialized water conducting tissue of
vascular plants. Many botanists believe these early land plants are the ancestors of primitive
vascular plants. The first vascular plants, called Rhyniophytes, did not have leaves or roots.
They consisted of both stems that grew along the ground and stems that grew upright with Yshaped branches. These plants probably grew as tall as 2 to 3 feet.
Larger plants called Trimerophytes may have developed from the Rhyniophytes. The
Trimerophytes had a more complex plant body with numerous stems and branches. But they did
not have leaves or roots. Other small vascular plants called Zosterophyllophytes appeared
shortly after the Rhyniophytes and also may have descended from them. Some botanists believe
Trimerophytes and Zosterophyllophytes are the ancestors of all vascular plants that exist today.
They think that ferns, horsetails, and seed-bearing plants evolved from Trimerophytes about 408
to 360 million years ago. Club mosses, quillworts, and selaginellas are believed to have evolved
from Zosterophyllophytes about that same time.
When the first vascular plants began to grow successfully on much of the land, life on
earth was very different than it is today. No leaves rustled in the breeze, few insects crawled
about, and no vertebrates lived on land. However, as conditions on the earth changed, new
plants and animals developed. During the Carboniferous Period, about 360 to 290 million years
ago, more complex and larger vascular plants evolved. Great forests of lycophyte trees, ferns,
horsetails, and early seed plants covered the earth. The huge plants of this period died and
accumulated in vast swamps. They later formed large coal deposits. Most of the coal found in
the Eastern and Midwestern United States is made up of these plants.
Gymnosperms became the most plentiful plants during the Mesozoic Era, beginning
about 240 million years ago. Conifers, cycads, and ginkgoes were among the most important
plants. They can be purchased at http://www.onlineplantnursery.com. They served as food for
the great dinosaurs that roamed the land during this period. Many now-extinct types of
gymnosperms also flourished. The first angiosperms, or flowering plants, appeared at the end of
the Mesozoic Era. Among them were magnolias, sycamores, willows, water lilies, and many
other present day flowering plants.
During the Cenozoic Era, forests of angiosperms covered much of the tropical and
temperate regions of the earth. Grasslands and large grazing animals began to appear late in the

Cenozoic Era. Some scientists believe that humanlike creatures appeared on the earth about 5
million years ago and lived in the regions between the forests and grasslands.