Evolutionary history of plants
The history of plant lineages from their origins through diversification, including the evolution of major groups and adaptations to life on land.
Primary endosymbiosis: The evolutionary incorporation of a free-living bacterium into another cell, producing a permanent organelle. It gave the ancestors of plants their chloroplasts through incorporation of a cyanobacterium.
Alternation of generations: A life cycle alternating between multicellular haploid and diploid stages. Plant lineages changed the size and independence of these two generations over evolutionary time.
Rhynie chert: A Devonian fossil deposit in Scotland preserving early land plants and their surrounding ecosystem. Its exceptional preservation shows early plant anatomy and interactions in place.
Bryophyte: A nonvascular land plant, including mosses, liverworts, and hornworts. Bryophytes contrast with vascular plants in anatomy and the dominance of the life cycle.
Evolution of terrestrial animals: The evolutionary transition of animal lineages from aquatic environments to life on land. Expanding plant habitats and food sources helped shape terrestrial animal ecosystems.
Archaeplastida: A eukaryotic supergroup that includes red algae, green algae, and land plants. Its lineages trace the broader ancestry of plants and their closest algal relatives.
Vascular tissue: Plant conducting tissue, including water-transporting xylem and sugar-transporting phloem. Its evolution enabled taller growth and transport over greater distances.
Devonian period: A geological period from about 419 to 359 million years ago, marked by major terrestrial diversification. Vascular plants diversified and forests first developed during this period.
Lycophyte: A seedless vascular plant lineage that includes clubmosses, quillworts, and related plants. Lycophytes represent an early-diverging vascular lineage distinct from ferns and seed plants.
Carboniferous: A geological period from about 359 to 299 million years ago, noted for extensive coal-forming wetlands. Vast plant growth and burial of organic matter formed many of the period’s coal deposits.