Fossils of the earliest land plants
The earliest fossilized land plants (400 million years ago) were simple leafless branching strand filaments found in rocks and cherts of the United Kingdom. Like mosses no root tissue had differentiated, however, long thick-walled cells enabling water to be conducted along stems had differentiated and represented a which gave plants structural strength to grow bigger. Such plants, together major advance with primitive mosses and liverworts created the first vegetation which permitted animals to colonize from the sea onto the land.
This plant from the Jurassic Age, some 180 million years old, emerged with its own unique structure, and with no ancestor preceding it (Right). This 300-million-year-old plant from the late Carboniferous is no different from specimens growing today (Middle). This 140-million-year-old fossil from the species Archaefructus is the oldest known fossil angiosperm (flowering plant). It possesses the same body, flower and fruit structure as similar plants alive today (Left).
