Plant Fossils

Plant Fossils
For Sale

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Visit these fossil dealer shops currently stocking plant fossils for sale:

EDCOPE Enterprises Stonerelic

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About Plant Fossils and Evolution of Plants

Science places the origin of plants (Kingdom of Life Plantae) in deep time of the precambrian with the appearance of algae, photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms once incorrectly grouped with prokaryotic bacteria. Algae make their photosynthesic living within membrane-bound organelles called chloroplasts that contain circular DNA similar in structure to Cyanobacteria, the likely direct outcome endosymbiosis in deep time. Based on evidence from fossil spores, the first land plants, the embryophytes that evolved from algae, appeared in the Ordovician period, some 450 million years ago. These included the non vascular plants of : 1) Division Marchantiophyta (liverworts); 2) Division Anthocerotophyta (hornworts); and 3) Division Bryophyta (moss).

That plant diversification, including the evolution of vascular tissue and water circulatory systems (the tracheophytes or higher plants), proceeded rapidly through the Silurian and into the early Devonian is evidenced by a rich floral fossil assemblage preserved with cellular detail in the Middle Devonian Rhynie chert of Scorland. By this time plants had evolved most of the characteristics of modern plants, such as roots, leaves and secondary wood. These include the seedless members of Divisions Rhyniophyta (rhyniophytes), Zosterophyllophyta (zosterophylls), Lycopodiophyta (clubmosses), Trimerophytophyta (trimerophytes), and Pteridophyta (ferns and horsetails). Seed plants (Superdivision Spermatophytes) had evolved by the Late Devonian, and forests comprising large trees had appeared. The seed plants are grouped into several divisions: 1) Cycadophyta (cycads); 2) Ginkgophyta, (the ginkgo, with one remaining "living fossil" representative); Pinophyta (the conifers); Gnetophyta (gnetophytes), and the flowering plants of Division Magnoliophyta. The fossil record has numerous extinct taxa of seed plants, among them the seed ferns (Pteridospermae) that were enormously successful forming vast late paleozoic forests. Glossopteris was a prevalent tree supercontinent Gondwana during the Permian period. Plants largely escaped the Permian/Triassic extinction. Seed ferns had declined in by the Triassic, with modern gymnosperm groups were abundant and dominant through the end of the Cretaceous, when angiosperms radiated.

The flowering plants (angiosperms), also known as Angiospermae or Magnoliophyta, are the most diverse group of extant land plants. When flowing evolved remains unsettled since the fossil record is inconclusive, but there is conjecture that the ancestors of the angiosperms diverged from an unknown group of gymnosperms during the late Triassic, more than 200 million years ago. The earliest known fossil evidence is pollen dated to 130 million years ago. The Jurassic plant Schmeissneria, traditionally considered a type of ginkgo, may be the earliest known angiosperm. Regardless, they rapidly radiated from the lower Cretaceous, becomming the dominant trees. The grasses and numerous other taxa evolved in the tertiary with new metabolic mechanisms as adatations to the prevailing dryer environments with lower carbon dioxide.