Plant evolution Proterozoic Green algal evolution Mid paleozoic

Plant evolution • • Proterozoic – Green algal evolution Mid paleozoic – First land plants Late paleozoic – Coal forests: early vascular plants Latest paleozoic – seed plants, early Gymnosperms Mesozoic – Gymnosperms (and reptiles) dominant Late mesozoic – first flowering plants Cenozoic – coevolution of flowering plants and insect pollinators

Ancestral Green Algae Bryophytes Ferns & allies Gymnosperms Angiosperms Fl ow Se Va sc ul Em br yo s ar tis s ue er s ed s Overview of Plant Evolution

Bryophyte-like plants evolved from Charophycean Green Algae A Coleochaete B Parka (Ordovician) From Berkeley Time Machine Chara Coleochaete

Seedless Vascular Plants • • Vascular tissue improves sporophyte efficiency Dominant plants from late Devonian through early Permian * Equatorial coal forests

Early Devonian landscape

Carboniferous (-300 my) coal forest model

Imagine a dragonfly with a wingspan of over 1 meter

Carboniferous forest

Devonian plant roots

First seed plants • • • Pregymnosperms Early Permean Pangea – dry, continental climates

Seed fern seeds Trigonocarpus from Mazon Creek formation (Carboniferous)

Evolution of flower & fruit • • • First fossils: late Jurassic period of Mesozoic era Diversified during Cenozoic era Coevolution with pollinators

Oldest flowering plant fossil

Fruit fossil

Primitive existing flowers