Home / Articles in Palaeobotany / Plant Evolution

Stephen T. Abedon, The Bacteriophage Ecology Group, Mansfield, Ohio State University, Columbus: Evolution of Plants. Brief lecture notes.
The link is to a version archived by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

! K.L. Adams and J.F. Wendel (2005): Polyploidy and genome evolution in plants. In PDF, Current opinion in plant biology.
Some references have been highlighted and annotated for recommended reading.

J.F. Allen and W.F.J. Vermaas (2010): Evolution of Photosynthesis. PDF file, In: Encyclopedia of Life Sciences (ELS), John Wiley & Sons.

! J. Anderson et al. (2007): Brief history of the gymnosperms: classification, biodiversity, phytogeography and ecology. In PDF, Strelitzia, 20, 279 p. See also here (abstract).

! J.M. Anderson et al. (1999): Patterns of Gondwana plant colonisation and diversification. Abstract, Journal of African Earth Sciences, 28: 145-l67. See also here (in PDF).

A. Andruchow-Colombo et al. (2023): In search of lost time: tracing the fossil diversity of Podocarpaceae through the ages. In PDF, Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society.
See also here.

A. Antonelli et al. (2015): An engine for global plant diversity: highest evolutionary turnover and emigration in the American tropics. In PDF, American tropics. Front. Genet., 6. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2015.00130
See also here.

! E.M. Armstrong et al. (2023): One hundred important questions facing plant science: an international perspective. Open access, New Phytologist, 238: 470–481.
"... we present the outcome of a global collaboration to identify emerging plant research themes.
[...] Over 600 questions were collected from anyone interested in plants, which were reduced to a final list of 100 ..."

! J.E. Armstrong and J. Jernstedt, The Botanical Society of America, St. Louis:
Botanical Society of America's Statement on Evolution.
See also here.

Hank Art et al., Williams College, Biology Dept., Williamstown MA: Field botany. Go to: Evolutionary Botany. Powerpoint download and links to aricles. See especially:
Early Land Plants.
Fossil Angiosperms.
Introduction to the Angiosperms.
Powerpoint presentations.

! J. Asar et al. (2022): Early diversifications of angiosperms and their insect pollinators: were they unlinked? Free access. Trends in Plant Science, 27: 858-869. See also here.
Note figure 1: Emergence of crown angiosperms and insect pollinators.
Figure 2. Phylogeny of seed plants, depicting pollination modes of both extinct and extant lineages.

L. Augusto et al. (2014): The enigma of the rise of angiosperms: can we untie the knot? In PDF, Ecology Letters.

F.J. Ayala, Walter M. Fitch, and Michael T. Clegg (eds.; 2000): Variation and Evolution in Plants and Microorganisms: Toward a New Synthesis 50 Years after Stebbins. Online book, National Academy of Sciences (2000).
This expired link is now available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.
See also here

S.-N. Bai (2017): Reconsideration of Plant Morphological Traits: From a Structure-Based Perspective to a Function-Based Evolutionary Perspective. Front. Plant Sci., 8: 345.

J. Barba-Montoya et al. (2018): Constraining uncertainty in the timescale of angiosperm evolution and the veracity of a Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution. In PDF, New Phytologist, 218: 819-834.
See also here.
Note fig. 6: The time tree of tracheophytes encompassing uncertainty of calibration strategies.
"... We reject a post-Jurassic origin of angiosperms, supporting the notion of a cryptic early history of angiosperms ..."

E. Barley and K. Fitzpatrick, lecture presentation for Campbell Biology, ninth edition:
Plant Diversity I: How Plants Colonized Land.
Powerpoint presentation, Chapter 29, Jane B. Reece et al., for Cambell Biology, Ninth Edition (by Victor Wong, Houston Community College, USA).
Plant Diversity II: The Evolution of Seed Plants. Powerpoint presentation.
Still available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

Dave Barrington, The Barrington Lab at the University of Vermont:
An Overview of Land Plant Evolution. Lecture notes, Powerpoint presentation.
See also here and there.

J. Barros et al. (2015): The cell biology of lignification in higher plants. Free access, Annals of Botany, 115: 1053–1074.

C.C. Baskin and J.M. Baskin (2023): The rudimentary embryo: an early angiosperm invention that contributed to their dominance over gymnosperms. Free access, Seed Science Research, 33: 63–74. https://doi.org/10.1017/ S0960258523000168.
Note table 1: Information about fossil ovules, seeds and embryos of gymnosperms from the Upper Devonian to Late Cretaceous.
"... we explore the origin of the rudimentary embryo, its relationship to other kinds of plant embryos and its role in the diversification of angiosperms.
[...] We conclude that the rudimentary embryo was one of many new developments of angiosperms that contributed to their great success on earth ..."

R.M. Bateman (2020): Hunting the Snark: the flawed search for mythical Jurassic angiosperms. In PDF, Journal of Experimental Botany, 71: 22–35. See also here.

! R.M. Bateman et al. (1998): Early evolution of land plants: phylogeny, physiology, and ecology of the primary terrestrial radiation. PDF file, Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst., 29: 263-292. Website saved by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

! R.M. Bateman and W.A. DiMichele (1994): Heterospory: the most iterative key innovation in the evolutionary history of the plant kingdom. In PDF, Biological Reviews.

BBC News, Friday, 3 May, 2002: "Oldest flower" found in China.

G. Beaugrand (2023): Towards an Understanding of Large-Scale Biodiversity Patterns on Land and in the Sea. Free access, Biology, 12. https://doi.org/10.3390/biology12030339.

J.M. Beaulieu et al. (2015): Heterogeneous rates of molecular evolution and diversification could explain the Triassic age estimate for angiosperms. Abstract.

D.J. Beerling (2013): Atmospheric carbon dioxide: a driver of photosynthetic eukaryote evolution for over a billion years? In PDF, Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B, Biol. Sci., 367: 477-482.

! D. Beerling (2010): The Emerald Planet. How Plants Changed Earth´s History. In PDF.

D.J. Beerling and R.A. Berner (2005): Feedbacks and the coevolution of plants and atmospheric CO₂. In PDF, PNAS, 102.

! C.D. Bell et al. (2010): The age and diversification of the angiosperms re-revisited. Free access, American Journal of Botany, 97: 1296-1303.

A. Bennici (2008): Origin and early evolution of land plants: Problems and considerations. Free access, Commun. Integr. Biol., 1: 212-218.

! M.J. Benton and F. Wu (2022): Triassic revolution. Free access, Frontiers in Earth Science, 10. See also here.
Note figure 9: Novel physiological and functional characteristics, new tetrapod, insect and plant groups in the Triassic on land.
"... On land, ongoing competition between synapsids and archosauromorphs through the Triassic was marked by a posture shift from sprawling to erect, and a shift in physiology to warm-bloodedness, with insulating skin coverings of hair and feathers. Dinosaurs, for example, originated in the Early or Middle Triassic, but did not diversify until after the CPE [Carnian Pluvial Episode]. ..."

! M.J. Benton et al. (2022): The Angiosperm Terrestrial Revolution and the origins of modern biodiversity. Free access, New Phytologist, 233: 2017–2035.
Note fig. 1: Evolution of hyperdiverse terrestrial life.
Fig. 3: Key stages in Earth history and angiosperm evolution through the Angiosperm Terrestrial Revolution.
Also worth checking out:
Flowering plants: an evolution revolution. (Univ. of Bristol, November 17, 2021).
How 'Flower Power' Quite Literally Transformed Earth Millions of Years Ago (by T. Koumoundouros, January 08,2022).

! H. Beraldi-Campesi (2013): Early life on land and the first terrestrial ecosystems. In PDF, Ecological Processes, 2. See also here.
Note figure 1: Suggested chronology of geological, atmospheric, and biological events during the Hadean, Archean, and Paleoproterozoic eons.

! M. Berbee et al. (2020). Genomic and fossil windows into the secret lives of the most ancient fungi. In PDF, Nature Reviews Microbiology, 18: 717-730. 10.1038/s41579-020-0426-8.
See also here.
"... Inferences can be drawn from evolutionary analysis by comparing the genes and genomes of fungi with the biochemistry and development of their plant and algal hosts. We then contrast this emerging picture against evidence from the fossil record to develop a new, integrated perspective on the origin and early evolution of fungi ..."

! Museum of Paleontology (UCMP), University of California at Berkeley, Plantae, Fossil Record: Chart of First Appearances of Major Plant Groups. Each of the taxonomic plant groups in pink boxes can be clicked upon to take you to an introduction.

Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum Berlin:
Von Nacktpflanzen und Schuppenbäumen. Ein Streifzug durch die Entwicklungsgeschichte der Pflanzen (in German). Easy to understand introduction.

! R.A. Berner et al. (2007): Oxygen and evolution. In PDF, Science, 316. Website saved by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

Robert A. Berner, Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut: The Rise of Plants and Their Effect on Weathering and Atmospheric CO₂ (now via wayback archive). See also here.

Michael Bernstein, Washington and New Orleans, March 21-27, 2003: (American Chemical Society, EurekAlert): Scientists find evidence for crucial root in the history of plant evolution.

! C.M. Berry (2019): Palaeobotany: The Rise of the Earth’s Early Forests. Free access, Current Biology, 29: R792-R794. See also here (in PDF).

! J.A. Berry et al. (2010): Stomata: key players in the earth system, past and present. Abstract, Current opinion in plant biology, 13: 232–239. See also here (in PDF).

S. Bhadra et al. (2023): From genome size to trait evolution during angiosperm radiation. In PDF, Trends in Genetics.
See likewise here.
Note figure 1: Schematic representation illustrating the relationship between genome size change and trait evolution.

! M.I. Bidartondo et al. (2011): The dawn of symbiosis between plants and fungi. In PDF, Biology Letters. See also here.

E. Biffin et al. (2013): Leaf evolution in Southern Hemisphere conifers tracks the angiosperm ecological radiation. In PDF, Proc. R. Soc. B, 279: 341-348.

A.C. Bippus et al. (2022): The Role of Paleontological Data in Bryophyte Systematics. Abstract, Journal of Experimental Botany.
"... Paucity of the bryophyte fossil record, driven primarily by phenotypic (small plant size) and ecological constraints (patchy substrate-hugging populations), and incomplete exploration, results in many morphologically isolated, taxonomically ambiguous fossil taxa. Nevertheless, instances of exquisite preservation and pioneering studies demonstrate the feasibility of including bryophyte fossils in evolutionary inference. ..."

H.J.B. Birks (2020): Angiosperms versus gymnosperms in the Cretaceous. Open access, PNAS, 117: 30879-30881.

B. Blonder et al. (2011): Venation networks and the origin of the leaf economics spectrum. In PDF, Ecology Letters, 14: 91-100. See also here.

B. Bomfleur et al. (2018): Polar Regions of the Mesozoic-Paleogene Greenhouse World as Refugia for Relict Plant Groups. Chapter 24, in PDF, in: M. Krings, C.J. Harper, N.R. Cuneo and G.W. Rothwell (eds.): Transformative Paleobotany Papers to Commemorate the Life and Legacy of Thomas N. Taylor.
Note figure 24.2: Distribution of Dicroidium through space and time.

W.J. Bond and A.C. Scott (2010): Fire and the spread of flowering plants in the Cretaceous. In PDF, New Phytologist, 188: 1137-1150.

Boston College: BC Scientist´s Fossil Discovery May Indicate Life on Land Evolved Earlier than Thought.
The link is to a version archived by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

! A.M.C. Bowles et al. (2023): The origin and early evolution of plants. Open access, Trends in Plant Science, 28.
Note figure 2: Phylogeny of early plant evolution with a selection of available genomic resources.
Figure 3: Fossils of possible and probable early archaeplastids.
! Figure 4: Summary of molecular estimates for the timescale of archaeplastid evolution.
"... Molecular clock analyses estimate that Streptophyta and Viridiplantae emerged in the late Mesoproterozoic to late Neoproterozoic, whereas Archaeplastida emerged in the late-mid Palaeoproterozoic ..."

! J.L. Bowman et al. (2022): The renaissance and enlightenment of Marchantia as a model system. Open access, The Plant Cell, koac219. See also https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=de&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=The+Renaissance+and+Enlightenment+of+Marchantia+as+a+model+system&btnG=.
Note fig. 1: Phylogenetic history of Marchantia plotted against the geologic timescale.
Figure 2. Life cycle of Marchantia polymorpha.

J.L. Bowman et al. (2017): Insights into Land Plant Evolution Garnered from the Marchantia polymorpha Genome. Abstract, Cell, 171: 287-304. See also here (in PDF).

C.K. Boyce and J.-E. Lee (2017): Plant Evolution and Climate over Geological Timescales. Abstract, Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 45.

C.K. Boyce and M.A. Zwieniecki (2019): The prospects for constraining productivity through time with the whole-plant physiology of fossils Open access, New Phytologist, 223: 40–49.

C.K. Boyce and A.B. Leslie (2012): The Paleontological Context of Angiosperm Vegetative Evolution. In PDF, International Journal of Plant Sciences, 173: 561–568.
See also here.
"... a survey of the fossil record demonstrates that most anatomical traits that are now unique to the angiosperms were more broadly distributed among extinct lineages.
[...] Of all the various vegetative morphological traits that have been traditionally linked to angiosperm success, only the evolution of very high leaf vein densities appears to be truly unique to the angiosperms. ..."

C.K. Boyce and M.A. Zwieniecki (2012): Leaf fossil record suggests limited influence of atmospheric CO₂ on terrestrial productivity prior to angiosperm evolution. Free access, PNAS, 109: 10403–10408.

! C.K. Boyce (2010): The evolution of plant development in a paleontological context. In PDF Current Opinion in Plant Biology, 13: 102-107.

C. Kevin Boyce et al. (2009). Angiosperm leaf vein evolution was physiologically and environmentally transformative. PDF file, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 276: 1771-1776. See also here (abstract).

! C.K. Boyce (2008): How green was Cooksonia? The importance of size in understanding the early evolution of physiology in the vascular plant lineage. In PDF, Paleobiology, 34: 179–194.
See likewise here.

C.K. Boyce, (2001): PATTERNS OF MORPHOLOGICAL EVOLUTION IN THE LEAVES OF FERNS AND SEED PLANTS. Abstract, GSA Annual Meeting, November 5-8, 2001.
Snapshot provided by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

! Jamie Boyer, The New York Botanical Garden:
What is Paleobotany?. Also worth checking out:
Plant Evolution & Paleobotany. An educational resource for students and teachers studying Earth's history, fossils, and evolution.
! Go to: Paleobotany Short-Course. Lecture notes.
Paleobotany Overview; Life moves to land.
Plant classification.
Rise of Seed Plants.
Rise of flowering plants.
Excellent!

J. Boyer (2008): Testing the Telome Concept: A Modeling Approach for Understanding the Growth of Early Vascular Plants. In PDF, Ph.D. Dissertation, Binghamton University State University of New York.

J.D. Boyko et al. (2023): The evolutionary responses of life-history strategies to climatic variability in flowering plants. Free access, New Phytologist, doi: 10.1111/nph.18971.
See also here (in PDF).
Note figure 1: Global distribution of vascular plant diversity and proportion of annual plants.

! M. Brasier et al. (2006): A fresh look at the fossil evidence for early Archaean cellular life. In PDF, Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B, Biol Sci., 361: 887–902. See also here.

J. Bres et al. (2021): The Cretaceous physiological adaptation of angiosperms to a declining _pCO₂: a modeling approach emulating paleo-traits. Free access, Biogeosciences, 18: 5729–5750.
"... we show that protoangiosperm physiology does not allow vegetation to grow under low _pCO₂
[...] confirms the hypothesis of a likely evolution of angiosperms from a state of low leaf hydraulic and photosynthetic capacities at high _pCO₂ to a state of high leaf hydraulic and photosynthetic capacities linked to leaves with more and more veins together ..."

J.C. Briggs (2014): Invasions, adaptive radiations, and the generation of biodiversity. In PDF, Environmental Skeptics and Critics, 3: 8-16.

The palaeofiles. Articles here have all been prepared by students on the palaeobiology programmes in Bristol:
! Purported Triassic angiosperms.
Now provided by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

The palaeofiles. Articles here have all been prepared by students on the palaeobiology programmes in Bristol:
! The origin and evolution of angiosperms.
Now provided by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

T.J. Brodribb and S.A.M. McAdam (2017): Evolution of the stomatal regulation of plant water content. Open access, Plant Physiology, 175: 639–649.

! Stephen P. Broker, Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute: The Evolution of Plants. Snapshot taken by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.
The evolution of plants is briefly treated primarily in terms of a consideration of the concepts of time and change, and an appreciation of the great diversity of life on earth today (without images). Recommended for Biology, 9th and 10th grade level, and Botany, 11th and 12th grade level.

! N. Brocklehurst et al. (2020): The origin of tetrapod herbivory: effects on local plant diversity. Free access, Proc. R. Soc. B 287: 20200124.
"... findings suggest that plant richness was to some extent structured by vertebrate herbivory from its earliest origins more than 300 Mya. Studies of modern ecosystems suggest that this should be the case, ..."

J.W. Brown and S.A. Smith (2017): The Past Sure Is Tense: On Interpreting Phylogenetic Divergence Time Estimates. See also here (in PDF).

M.C. Brundrett (2002): Coevolution of roots and mycorrhizas of land plants. In PDF, New phytologist, 154: 275-304.
Provided by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

Neil Buckley, Department of Biological Sciences, SUNY Plattsburgh, Plattsburgh, NY: Bio 102 General Biology II Class Notes. Powerpoint presentations. Go to:
An overview of Plant Evolution. Key Moments in the life of Kingdom Plantae.
Websites still available via Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

G.E. Budd et al. (2021): Fossil data do not support a long pre-Cretaceous history of flowering plants. Free access, bioRxiv.

G.E. Budd et al. (2021): The use of geological and paleontological evidence in evaluating plant phylogeographic hypotheses in the Northern Hemisphere Tertiary. Free access, biorxiv.org. See also here (in PDF).

R.J.A. Buggs (2021): The origin of Darwin’s “abominable mystery”. Free access, American Journal of Botany, 108: 22–36.

R.J. Burnham (2008): Hide and Go Seek: What Does Presence Mean in the Fossil Record. Abstract, Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden, 95: 51-71. See also here (in PDF).

Alison Campbell et al., Biology & Earth Science, The University of Waikato, New Zealand: Evolution for Teaching. This website has been developed to provide a web based resource for use by secondary teachers, especially in the science fields of evolution and geological time. Go to: Plant and Animal Evolution.

P.D. Cantino et al. (2007): Towards a phylogenetic nomenclature of Tracheophyta. PDF file, Taxon, 56: 822-846. See also here.

! E. Capel et al. (2022): The Silurian–Devonian terrestrial revolution: Diversity patterns and sampling bias of the vascular plant macrofossil record. In PDF, Earth-Science Reviews, 231.
See also here.
Note fig. 6: Silurian–Devonian diversity patterns of tracheophytes.
"... The sampling-corrected pattern of standing diversity suggests a clear increase of plant richness in the Pragian (Early Devonian) and Givetian (Middle Devonian) ..."

E. Capel et al. (2023): The effect of geological biases on our perception of early land plant radiation. Free access, Palaeontology, 66.
"... geological incompleteness remains a fundamental bias for describing early plant diversification. This indicates that, even when sampling is extensive, observed diversity patterns potentially reflect the heterogeneity of the rock record, which blurs our understanding of the early history of land vegetation ..."

E. Capel et al. (2021): A factor analysis approach to modelling the early diversification of terrestrial vegetation. In PDF, Palaeogeography,Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. See also here.

Sean Carrington, Department of Biological & Chemical Sciences, University of the West Indies (UWI), Barbados: The Plant Kingdom. An introduction to the world of plants from an evolutionary perspective.
Have a look for handouts and PDF files,
or navigate from here.
Websites still available via Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

! M.R. Carvalho et al. (2021): Extinction at the end-Cretaceous and the origin of modern Neotropical rainforests Science, 372: 63–68. See also here (in PDF).
"... Plant diversity declined by 45% at the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary and did not recover for ~6 million years. ..."
Please take notice: Wie der Asteroid den Regenwald prägte. Wissenschaft.de, in German.

! B. Cascales-Miñana et al. (2019): An alternative model for the earliest evolution of vascular plants. Abstract, Lethaia, 52: 445–453. See also here (in PDF).

! B. Cascales-Miñana and C.J. Cleal (2013): The plant fossil record reflects just two great extinction events. Abstract. See also here (in PDF).

B. Cascales-Miñana and J.B. Diez (2012): The effect of singletons and interval length on interpreting diversity trends from the palaeobotanical record. In PDF, Palaeontologia Electronica.

David D. Cass, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta: Earliest Evidence of Flowering Plants. 32 slides.
Website outdated. The link is to a version archived by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

S.R.S. Cevallos-Ferriz et al. (2022): Paleobotany to understand evolution and biodiversity in Mexico. In PDF, Botanical Sciences, 100 (Special Issue): S34-S65.
See also here.

! A.S. Chanderbali et al. (2016): Evolving Ideas on the Origin and Evolution of Flowers: New Perspectives in the Genomic Era. In PDF, Genetics, 202: 1255–1265. See also here.

University of Virginia, Charlottesville:
! Evolution of Land Plants.
Powerpoint presentation.
Still available via Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

! J. Chave et al. (2009): Towards a worldwide wood economics spectrum. In PDF, Ecology Letters, 12: 351–366.

S.M. Chaw et al. (1997): Molecular phylogeny of extant gymnosperms and seed plant evolution: analysis of nuclear 18S rRNA sequences. In PDF.

(?), University of Virginia, Charlottesville:
! Evolution of Land Plants. Powerpoint presentation.
This expired link is still available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

! M.J.M. Christenhusz et al. (2021): Biogeography and genome size evolution of the oldest extant vascular plant genus, Equisetum (Equisetaceae). Free access, Annals of Botany, 127: 681–695.
Note figure 2: Tree of Equisetum.
Figure 3: Spatiotemporal evolution of Equisetum.
"... With a calculated age of 342 Mya, we place the origin of the ancestor of the extant members of Equisetaceae in the Early Carboniferous, with Equisetum evolving at some point after that, probably soon, but definitely before 175 Mya, making it possibly the oldest extant genus of vascular plants. ..."

! T.Y.S. Choo and I.H. Escapa (2018): Assessing the evolutionary history of the fern family Dipteridaceae (Gleicheniales) by incorporating both extant and extinct members in a combined phylogenetic study. Abstract, American Journal of Botany 105: 1–14. See also here (in PDF).

Paul F. Ciesielski, Dept. Geological Sciences, University of Florida: Evolution of Earth and Life. Go to: Transition of plants to land.
Snapshot provided by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

Citable reviews in the life sciences (Wiley). Go to:
Plant Evolution.

J.W. Clark (2023): Genome evolution in plants and the origins of innovation. Free access, New Phytologist, 240: 2204-2209.
! Note figure 1: Genomic and phenotypic innovation across land plants. A time-calibrated phylogeny of land plants shows periods of dynamic genome evolution including gene gain, transfer and loss.
"... Plant evolution has been characterised by a series of major novelties in their vegetative and reproductive traits that have led to greater complexity.
[...] When viewed at the scale of the plant kingdom, plant genome evolution has been punctuated by conspicuous instances of gene and whole-genome duplication, horizontal gene transfer and extensive gene loss ..."

! J.W. Clark et al. (2022): The origin and evolution of stomata. Free access, Curr. Biol., 6: R539-R553. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2022.04.040.
See likewise here.
! Note figure 1: The phylogenetic context for stomatal origins and evolution.
Figure 4: The diversity of stomatal responses among land plants.

J.W. Clark and P.C.J. Donoghue (2018): Whole-Genome Duplication and Plant Macroevolution. In PDF, Trends in Plant Science, 23: 933-945. See also here.

! J.T. Clarke et al. (2011): Establishing a time-scale for plant evolution. PDF file, New Phytologist. See also here.
! Note figure 2: A representative tree of relationships between model representatives of the major land plant lineages whose plastid or nuclear genomes have been fully sequenced.
Figure 7: Chronogram for land plant evolution.
Figure 8: Chronograms for the six molecular clock analyses conducted.
"... We reject both a post-Jurassic origin of angiosperms and a post-Cambrian origin of land plants. Our analyses also suggest that the establishment of the major embryophyte lineages occurred at a much slower tempo than suggested in most previous studies. ..."

Regine Claßen-Bockhoff (2001): Plant Morphology: The Historic Concepts of Wilhelm Troll, Walter Zimmermann and Agnes Arber. Free PDF file, Annals of Botany, 88: 1153-1172.

! C.J. Cleal and B. Cascales-Miñana (2021, start on PDF-page 39): Evolutionary floras - revealing large-scale patterns in Palaeozoic vegetation history. Journal of Palaeosciences, 70: 31-42.

C.J. Cleal et al. (2021): Palaeobotanical experiences of plant diversity in deep time. 1: How well can we identify past plant diversity in the fossil record? Abstract, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 576.
See likewise here (in PDF).
"... Autochthonous floras provide the most direct evidence of vegetation diversity but these are rare; most plant beds are allochthonous with plant remains that have been subjected to varying levels of fragmentation, transportation and time averaging
[...] the plant fossil record provides clear evidence of the dynamic history of vegetation through geological times, including the effects of major processes such as climate changes and mass extinctions ..."

C.J. Cleal and B. Cascales-Miñana (2014): Composition and dynamics of the great Phanerozoic Evolutionary Floras. Abstract.

J.L. Cloudsley-Thompson (2005): Ecology and Behaviour of Mesozoic Reptiles, The Mesozoic Environment. In PDF. See also here,

! J.C. Coates et al. (2011): Plants and the Earth system - past events and future challenges. In PDF, New Phytologist, 89: 370-373.
See also here.

C. Coiffard et al. (2012): Rise to dominance of angiosperm pioneers in European Cretaceous environments . Abstract. See also here (ScienceBlog.com) and there (Zeenews.com).

M. Coiro et al. (2024): Parallel evolution of angiosperm-like venation in Peltaspermales: a reinvestigation of Furcula. Open access, New Phytologist, doi: 10.1111/nph.19726.
"... Although a hierarchical-reticulate venation also occurs in some groups of extinct seed plants, it is unclear whether these are stem relatives of angiosperms
[...] We further suggest that the evolution of hierarchical venation systems in the early Permian, the Late Triassic, and the Early Cretaceous represent ‘natural experiments’ that might help resolve the selective pressures enabling this trait to evolve ..."

M. Coiro (2024): Embracing uncertainty: The way forward in plant fossil phylogenetics. Open access, American Journal of Botany. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajb2.16282.
"... Although molecular phylogenetics remains the most widely used method of inferring the evolutionary history of living groups, the last decade has seen a renewed interest in morphological phylogenetics
[...] Given the nature of plant fossil and morphological data, embracing uncertainty by exploring support within the data represents a more productive and heuristic research program than trying to achieve the same support and resolution given by molecular data ..."

! M. Coiro et al. (2023): Reconciling fossils with phylogenies reveals the origin and macroevolutionary processes explaining the global cycad biodiversity. Open access, New Phytologist, doi: 10.1111/nph.19010.
Note figure 1: Global distribution of Cycadales.
! Figure 2: Bayesian total-evidence dated phylogeny of Cycadales.
! Figure 3: Ages of extant genera and fossil placements. Phylogenetic relationships for extant and extinct cycads.
! Figure 4: Historical biogeography of cycads.
"... Combining molecular data for extant species and leaf morphological data for extant and fossil species, we study the origin of cycad global biodiversity patterns through Bayesian total-evidence dating analyses.
[...] Cycads originated in the Carboniferous on the Laurasian landmass and expanded in Gondwana in the Jurassic.
[...] We show the benefits of integrating fossils into phylogenies to estimate ancestral areas of origin and to study evolutionary processes explaining the global distribution of present-day relict groups ..."

! M. Coiro et al. (2022): Cutting the long branches: Consilience as a path to unearth the evolutionary history of Gnetales. Open access, Front. Ecol. Evol. 10:1082639. doi: 10.3389/fevo.2022.1082639.
See also here.
Note figure 2: Phylograms showing the presence of long branches in the Gnetales. Figure 6: Top: examples of macrofossils with gnetalean affinity.

! M. Coiro et al. (2019): How deep is the conflict between molecular and fossil evidence on the age of angiosperms? Free access, New Phytologist, doi: 10.1111/nph.15708.
"... Critical scrutiny shows that supposed pre-Cretaceous angiosperms either represent other plant groups or lack features that might confidently assign them to the angiosperms. ..."

F.L. Condamine et al. (2020): The rise of angiosperms pushed conifers to decline during global cooling. Free access, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117: 28867–28875.
Note figure 1: An overview of hypothetical determinants of conifer diversification over time.
Figure 2: Global diversification of conifers inferred from a molecular phylogeny and the fossil record.
Figure 3: Drivers of conifer diversification dynamics.

! F.L. Condamine et al. (2015): Origin and diversification of living cycads: a cautionary tale on the impact of the branching process prior in Bayesian molecular dating. In PDF, BMC Evolutionary Biology.
Note figure 1: The node calibration procedure used for dating the cycads.
! Figure 2: Time-calibrated phylogeny of Cycadales.
! "... We also provide new insights into the history of cycad diversification because we found (i) periods of extinction along the long branches of the genera consistent with fossil data, and (ii) high diversification rates within the Miocene genus radiations. ..."

Richard Cowen, Department of Geology, University of California, Davis: Comparing Plant and Animal Evolution.
Still available via Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

C.J. Cox et al. (2014): Conflicting Phylogenies for Early Land Plants are Caused by Composition Biases among Synonymous Substitutions. Syst. Biol., 63: 272-279.

! P.R. Crane and A.B. Leslie (2013): Major Events in the Evolution of Land Plants. In PDF. The Princeton Guide to Evolution.
1. Phylogenetic framework.
2. Origin and diversification of land plants.
3. Origin and diversification of vascular plants.
4. Origin and diversification of seed plants.
5. Origin and diversification of flowering plants.
6. Innovation in the land plant body.
7. Innovation in land plant reproduction.
8. Co-evolution with animals.
9. Patterns of extinction.
See also here, and there (Google books).

P.R. Crane et al. (2010): Darwin and the Evolution of Flowers. PDF file, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 365: 347-350.
The link is to a version archived by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

P.R. Crane et al. (2004): Fossils and plant phylogeny. Free access, American Journal of Botany, 91: 1683-1699.

! W.L. Crepet and K.J. Niklas (2009): Darwin´s second "abominable mystery": Why are there so many angiosperm species? Open access, American Journal of Botany, 96: 366-381.

! W.L. Crepet (2008): The Fossil Record of Angiosperms: Requiem or Renaissance? Abstract, Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden, 95: 3-33.
"... a reasonably good fossil record of angiosperms is emerging
[...] One of its most striking aspects is the rapid radiation of angiosperm taxa that are now unusually diverse around two particular times in geological history: the Turonian and Early Tertiary. Possible reasons for these intervals of rapid radiation among angiosperms will be discussed.

W.L. Crepet et al. (2004): Fossil evidence and phylogeny: the age of major angiosperm clades based on mesofossil and macrofossil evidence from Cretaceous deposits. Free access, American Journal of Botany, 91: 1666-1682.
! Beautifully preserved charcoalified flowers!

Cyberinfrastructure for Phylogenetic Research (CIPRES). Building the Tree of Life: A National Resource for Phyloinformatics and Computational Phylogenetics. CIPRES is a collaboration of many american museums and institutions. Go to:
! Getting to the Roots of Plant Evolution (Powerpoint presentation). See also the Exercise Handout (PDF file).
Snapshots provided by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

R. Daber (2012), Academic Universal-Lexikon:
Evolution: Pflanzen erobern das Festland (in German).
These expired links are now available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

! T.W. Dahl and S.K.M. Arens (2020): The impacts of land plant evolution on Earth's climate and oxygenation state – An interdisciplinary review. Open access, Chemical Geology, 547.

A. Dadras et al. (2023): Accessible versatility underpins the deep evolution of plant specialized metabolism. Open access, Phytochemistry Reviews.
Note figure 1: Evolutionary dynamics in key biochemical pathways.

D. J. Daniels, Glendale High School, Glendale, Arizona: Advanced Placement Biology 2000, D. J. Daniels´ Glendale High Biology Page, Land Plants, Evolution and Diversity.
Still available via Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

M. D'Ario et al. (2023): Hidden functional complexity in the flora of an early land ecosystem. Free access, New Phytologist, doi: 10.1111/nph.19228.
"... Our approach highlights the impact of sporangia morphology on spore dispersal and adaptation
We discovered previously unidentified innovations among early land plants, discussing how different species might have opted for different spore dispersal strategies ..."

! M.P. D'Antonio et al. (2020): Land plant evolution decreased, rather than increased, weathering rates. In PDF, Geology, 48: 29–33. See also here.
Note figure 2: Paleozoic _pCO₂ values from a recent proxy compilation.
"... The mass-balance constraints on the long-term carbon cycle provide a mechanism for linking how land plant evolution simultaneously increased nutrient recycling and weathering efficiency of the Earth’s surface ..."

C.C. Davis and S. Matthews (2019); Davis Lab, Harvard University Herbaria, Cambridge, MA:
! Evolution of Land Plants. In PDF.
Evolution of land plants in a nutshell, including a selected annotated bibliography.
Issued in Oxford Bibliographies, selected bibliographies for a variety of academic topics.

C.C. Davis and H. Schaefer (2011): Plant Evolution: Pulses of Extinction and Speciation in Gymnosperm Diversity. Open access, Current Biology.

H.J. de Boer et al. (2012): A critical transition in leaf evolution facilitated the Cretaceous angiosperm revolution. In PDF, Nature Communications, 3.

O. De Clerck et al. (2012): Diversity and Evolution of Algae: Primary Endosymbiosis. In PDF, Advances in Botanical Research, 64.
This expired link is available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

! A.L. Decombeix et al. (2019): Plant hydraulic architecture through time: lessons and questions on the evolution of vascular systems. In PDF, IAWA Journal, 40: 387-420. See also here and there.

P.M. Delaux and S. Schornack (2021): Plant evolution driven by interactions with symbiotic and pathogenic microbes. In PDF, Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 371 (6531), pp.eaba6605. ff10.1126/science.aba6605ff. ffhal-03327916ff.
See also here.
"... Delaux and Schornack review how insights from a range of plant and algal genomes reveal sustained use through evolution of ancient gene modules as well as emergence of lineage-specific specializations. Mosses, liverworts, and hornworts have layered innovation onto existing pathways to build new microbial interactions. ..."

P.M. Delaux et al. (2012): Molecular and biochemical aspects of plant terrestrialization. In PDF, Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics, 14: 49-59.

! L.E.V. Del-Bem (2018): Xyloglucan evolution and the terrestrialization of green plants. Free access, New Phytologist, 219: 1150–1153.

! P.M. Delaux et al. (2019): Reconstructing trait evolution in plant evo–devo studies. Free access, Current Biology, 29: R1110-R1118.
"... we summarize a subset of the different aspects of plant evolutionary biology, provide a guide for structuring comparative biology approaches and discuss the pitfalls that (plant) researchers should avoid when embarking on such studies ..."

C.F. Delwiche et al. (2017): Land Plant Model Systems Branch Out. In PDF, Cell, 171.
"Liverworts may be the sister taxon to all other land plants, and the genome shows features that illuminate the ancestor of all land plants and give insights into how plant systems function and evolved".

! C.F. Delwiche and E.D. Cooper (2015): The Evolutionary Origin of a Terrestrial Flora. Abstract, Current Biology. Please take notice:
! From algae to land plants (and vice versa). Did some freshwater algae descend from a terrestrial ancestor? In PDF.

B. De Rybel et al. (2016): Plant vascular development: from early specification to differentiation. Abstract, Nat. Rev. Mol. Cell Biol., 2016: 30-40. see also here and there (in PDF).

Melanie DeVore, Department of Biological and Environmental Science, Georgia College and State University:
Plant Origin and Evolution. PowerPoint presentation (87.4 MB!).
This expired link is still available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

! J. De Vries and J.M. Archibald (2018): Plant evolution: landmarks on the path to terrestrial life. Free access, New Phytologist, 217: 1428-1434.

J. de Vries et al. (2018): Embryophyte stress signaling evolved in the algal progenitors of land plants. In PDF, PNAS, 115. See also here (abstract), and there (in German).

! D.L. Dilcher (2001): Paleobotany: some aspects of non-flowering and flowering plant evolution. In PDF, Taxon.
See also here.
For early angiospermous fossil floras see figure 1 (on PDF page 5).

David Dilcher (2000): Toward a new synthesis: Major evolutionary trends in the angiosperm fossil record. PDF file, Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A., 97: 7030-7036. See also here.

W.A. DiMichele et al. (2023): A paleontological perspective on ecosystem assembly rules in the terrestrial Paleozoic. Free access, Evolving Earth.
Note figure 1: Early Devonian (Emsian) flora from Gaspé, Canada.
Figure 2C: Edaphosaurus feeding on Supaia plants on stream bank, with background vegetation dominated by conifers. Early Permian (Wolfcampian/Asselian), New Mexico.

W.A. DiMichele et al. (2008): The so-called "Paleophytic–Mesophytic" transition in equatorial Pangea. Multiple biomes and vegetational tracking of climate change through geological time. PDF file, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 268: 152-163.
See likewise here (abstract), and there (still available via Internet Archive Wayback Machine).
! "... the evidence for a global “Paleophytic” vs. “Mesophytic” “vegetation” is simply unsubstantiated by the fossil record.
[...] The vegetational changes occurring in the late Paleozoic thus can be understood best when examined as spatial–temporal changes in biome-scale species pools responding to major global climate changes, locally and regionally manifested. ..."

! W.A. DiMichele and R.M. Bateman (2005): Evolution of Land Plant Diversity: Major Innovations and Lineages through Time. In PDF, In: Krupnick, G.A. & Kress, W.J. (eds): Plant Conservation. A Natural History Approach. Chicago University Press, Chicago, IL, 3–14.

W.A. DiMichele et al. (2004): Long-term stasis in ecological assemblages: evidence from the fossil record. PDF file, Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst., 35: 285-322. Provided by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

! W.A. DiMichele (1999): EVOLUTIONARY AND PALEOECOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF TERRESTRIAL FLORAL CHANGES IN THE LATE PALEOZOIC TROPICS. Abstract, 1999 GSA Annual Meeting, Denver, Colorado; The Geological Society of America (GSA).
This expired link is now available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

W.A. DiMichele et al. (1987): Opportunistic evolution: abiotic environmental stress and the fossil record of plants. PDF file, Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, 50: 151-178.
See also here.

D. Dimitrov et al. (2023): Diversification of flowering plants in space and time. Free access, Nature Communications, 14.
"... Using a newly generated genus-level phylogeny and global distribution data for 14,244 flowering plant genera, we describe the diversification dynamics of angiosperms through space and time. Our analyses show that diversification rates increased throughout the early Cretaceous and then slightly decreased or remained mostly stable until the end of the Cretaceous–Paleogene mass extinction event 66 million years ago. After that, diversification rates increased again towards the present ..."

Adam Dimech, Burnley College, University of Melbourne, Australia:
Plant Evolution. The website is designed to serve as an introduction to the theory behind the evolution of the world's flora, with some emphasis placed on the Australian flora.
Still available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

D.S. Domozych et al. (2013): The Cell Walls of Green Algae: A Journey through Evolution and Diversity. In PDF.

! P.C.J. Donoghue et al. (2021): The evolutionary emergence of land plants. In PDF, Current Biology, 31: R1281-R1298.
See also here.
"... The oldest possible fossil evidence for land plants occurs as late Cambrian cryptospores, but their irregular arrangements and occurrence in ‘packets’ of multiple spore-like bodies sur- rounded by synoecosporal walls has led to algal interpretations ..."
! Note figure 4: Timescale of streptophyte phylogeny and the origin of land plant novelties.

P. Donoghue (2019): Evolution: The Flowering of Land Plant Evolution. Abstract, Current Biology. See also:
Evolution: The flowering of land plant evolution - whence and whither? (in PDF).

! M.J. Donoghue et al. (2015): Confluence, synnovation, and depauperons in plant diversification. Open access, New Phytologist, 207: 260–274.

M.J. Donoghue and E.J. Edwards (2014): Biome shifts and niche evolution in plants. In PDF, Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst., 45: 547-572.

M.J. Donoghue (2005): Key innovations, convergence, and success: macroevolutionary lessons from plant phylogeny. In PDF, Paleobiology, 31: 77-93.
See also here.

M.J. Donoghue (1989): Phylogenies and the analysis of evolutionary sequences, with examples from seed plants. Open access, Evolution, 43.

! M.J. Donoghue (1989): Phylogenies and the analysis of evolutionary sequences, with examples from seed plants. Open access, Evolution, 43.

J.A. Doyle and P.K. Endress (2014): Integrating Early Cretaceous Fossils into the Phylogeny of Living Angiosperms: ANITA Lines and Relatives of Chloranthaceae Int. J. Plant Sci., 175: 555–600.

! J.A. Doyle (2013): Phylogenetic analyses and morphological innovations in land plants. Free access, Annual Plant Reviews book series, Volume 45: The Evolution of Plant Form. See also here (in PDF).

! J.A. Doyle (2012): Molecular and fossil evidence on the origin of angiosperms. In PDF, Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 40: 301-26.

James A. Doyle, Section of Evolution and Ecology, University of California, Davis: PHYLOGENY OF VASCULAR PLANTS. Abstract, Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst. 1998. 29:567-599. See also here.

X.Y. Du et al. (2021): Simultaneous diversification of Polypodiales and angiosperms in the Mesozoic. In PDF, Cladistics, 37.
See also here.
Note fig. 2: Summary chronograms of Polypodiales.
Fig. 5. Comparison of lineage through time plots for Polypodiales and angiosperms.
"... The estimated divergence patterns of Polypodiales and angiosperms converge to a scenario in which their main lineages were established simultaneously shortly before the onset of the Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution ..."

J.G. Duckett et al. (2023): Evolution of phenotypic disparity in the plant kingdom. Open access, Nature Plants, 9: 1618–1626.
"... the plant kingdom exhibits a pattern of episodically increasing disparity throughout its evolutionary history that mirrors the evolutionary floras and reflects ecological expansion facilitated by reproductive innovations
[...] disparity increases at a slower rate through the middle and late Palaeozoic to the early Mesozoic, followed by a sharp increase during the Triassic that reflects the diversification of gymnosperms and ferns and the origin of angiosperms ..."

! D. Edwards et al. 2022a): Piecing together the eophytes–a new group of ancient plants containing cryptospores. Free access, New Phytologist, 233: 1440–1455.

! D. Edwards et al. 2022b): Earliest record of transfer cells in Lower Devonian plants. Free access, New Phytologist, 233: 1456–1465.

! D. Edwards and P. Kenrick (2015): The early evolution of land plants, from fossils to genomics: a commentary on Lang (1937) "On the plant-remains from the Downtonian of England and Wales". Open access, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 370.
Note figure 4: Relationships among major groups of land plants showing the hypothesized broad range of clades to which cryptophytes (extinct cryptospore-producing plants) might belong.

! A. Elgorriaga et al. (2019): Relictual Lepidopteris (Peltaspermales) from the Early Jurassic Cañadón Asfalto Formation, Patagonia, Argentina. Abstract, Int. J. Plant Sci., 180. See also here (in PDF), and there.
"... and its youngest species, Lepidopteris ottonis, has been used as a Rhaetian marker for several European, Greenlandic, and American localities ..."
"... Lepidopteris scassoi represents the youngest occurrence of the genus by more than 20 Myr. Lepidopteris and Dicroidium lineages, dominant in Southern Hemisphere Triassic ecosystems, show a similar overall pattern of origination (Late Permian), diversification (late Early-Middle Triassic), and decline (Late Triassic), with relict occurrences during the Early Jurassic. ..."

C. Elliott-Kingston et al. (2021): Creating a university evolution garden: An integrated learning approach for teaching land plant evolution. Open access, Plants People Planet, 3: 761-774.

P.K. Endress (2011): Angiosperm ovules: diversity, development, evolution. Free access, Annals of Botany, 107: 1465-1489.

I.H. Escapa and S. Catalano (2013): Phylogenetic Analysis of Araucariaceae: Integrating Molecules, Morphology, and Fossils. In PDF, International Journal of Plant Sciences. See also here.
"... Monophyletic Araucariaceae is the sister group of Podocarpaceae, forming the order Araucariales. Monophyly of Araucaria and Agathis is also strongly supported by the data. The results of both molecular and combined analyses indicate that Wollemia and Agathis form a clade (=agathioid clade) sister to Araucaria ..."

M.J. Farabee, Estrella Mountain Community College, Phoenix, Arizona:
! On-Line Biology Book. Table of Contents. Introductory biology lecture notes. Go to:
! The modern view of evolution.

J.A. Fawcett and Y. Van de Peer (2010): Angiosperm polyploids and their road to evolutionary success. Trends in Evolutionary Biology.
See also here.

T.S. Feild et al. (2011): Fossil evidence for Cretaceous escalation in angiosperm leaf vein evolution. In PDF, PNAS, 108: 8363-8366.

F.A.A. Feijen et al. (2018): Evolutionary dynamics of mycorrhizal symbiosis in land plant diversification. In PDF, Scientific reports.

C. Ferrándiz et al. (2010): Carpel development. In PDF, Advances in Botanical Research, 55: 1-73.
See also here.

! K.J. Field and S. Pressel (2018): Unity in diversity: structural and functional insights into the ancient partnerships between plants and fungi. In PDF, New Phytologist. See also here

K.J. Field et al. (2015): Symbiotic options for the conquest of land. In PDF, Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 30: 477-486. See also here.

S. Fields (2021): Diversification of Angiosperms During the Cretaceous Period. In PDF, Undergraduate Student Theses, Environmental Studies Program at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska,Lincoln. See also here.

J. Folsom, The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, CA: Plant Trivia Timeline. This expired link is available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine. See also:
here (PDF file). The Timeline gives world history from the viewpoint of a botanist. It is the story of plant discovery and use, and addresses the roles of plants in human civilization.

David Ford, Canopy Dynamics Lab, School of Environmental and Forest Resources, University of Washington, Seattle, WA:
! Biol220 TAs. Botany lecture notes (Powerpoint presentations). See especially:
The Importance of Plants, their origins and ways of life.
Plant evolution timeline on Powerpoint slide 11, 18 and 22!

! F. Forrest (2009): Calibrating the Tree of Life: fossils, molecules and evolutionary timescales. Free access, Annals of Botany, 104: 789–794.
"... New methods have now been proposed to resolve potential sources of error associated with the calibration of phylogenetic trees, particularly those involving use of the fossil record.
[...] ! "...the fossil record remains the most reliable source of information for the calibration of phylogenetic trees, although associated assumptions and potential bias must be taken into account. ..."

! C.S.P. Foster (2016): The evolutionary history of flowering plants. In PDF, Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 149: 65-82.

P.J. Franks et al. (2012): Megacycles of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration correlate with fossil plant genome size. In PDF, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 367: 556-564.
See also here.

W.A. Friedman (2020): Darwin in the garden: Engaging the public about evolution with museum collections of living objects. Open access, Plants, People, Planet, 2: 294–301.
"... Polls continue to show distressingly high percentages of people around the world do not accept that evolution has occurred.
[...] It is time for botanical gardens and arboreta around the world to commit to leveraging their living collections of museum objects to explain and demonstrate the roles of mutation, variation, and selection in the evolutionary process. In doing so, much could be accomplished to increase scientific literacy at a societal level.

W.E. Friedman (2017): Insights into how the world turned green. In PDF, New Phytologist.

W.E. Friedman et al. (2004): The evolution of plant development. Free access, American Journal of Botany 91: 1726-1741.

W.E. Friedman and M.E. Cook (2000): The origin and early evolution of tracheids in vascular plants: integration of palaeobotanical and neobotanical data. In PDF, Phil.Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B, 355: 857-868.
See also here.
! Note figure 2. The three major types of early tracheids.

! E.M. Friis et al. (2011): Early Flowers and Angiosperm Evolution. Abstract, Cambridge University Press.
See also here (in PDF, long download time) and there (Google books).
Also worth checking out: Book Review, by P.J. Rudall, Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 170. In PDF.
"... This long-awaited book represents not only a remarkable tour de force of palaeobotanical literature, but also a potentially enduring biological textbook. ..."

Else Marie Friis, Kaj Raunsgaard Pedersen and Peter R. Crane (2010): Diversity in obscurity: fossil flowers and the early history of angiosperms. PDF file, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 365: 369-382. Some of the specimens are charcoalified and have retained their original three-dimensional shape. See also here.

! M.W. Frohlich & M.W. Chase (2007): After a dozen years of progress the origin of angiosperms is still a great mystery. In PDF, Nature, 450: 1184-1189.
See also here.

! Q. Fu et al. (2023): Micro-CT results exhibit ovules enclosed in the ovaries of Nanjinganthus. Open access, Scientific Reports, 13.
Note figure 4: Micro-CT results exhibit ovules enclosed in the ovaries of Nanjinganthus.

T. Fujiwara et al. (2023): Evolution of genome space occupation in ferns: linking genome diversity and species richness. Open access, Annals of Botany, 131: 59–70.

J.M.R. Fürst-Jansen et al. (2020): Evo-physio: on stress responses and the earliest land plants. Free access, Journal of Experimental Botany, 71: 3254–3269.

! D.J. Futuyma and A.A. Agrawal (2009): Macroevolution and the biological diversity of plants and herbivores. In PDF.

! Robert A. Gastaldo, Department of Geology, Colby College, Waterville, Maine:
Plant Associations of the Mesophytic. Lecture Notes.
Still available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

J.F. Genise et al. (2020): 100 Ma sweat bee nests: Early and rapid co-diversification of crown bees and flowering plants. Open access, PLoS ONE 15: e0227789.

! P.G. Gensel (2021): When did terrestrial plants arise? Abstract, Science, 373: : 736-737.
"... There has been a discrepancy in the time of land plant origination between molecular clock estimations (based on genes and RNA) and fossil record estimates (based on morphology). On page 792 of this issue, Strother and Foster (6) describe fossilized spores whose characteristics raise the possibility that land plants arose by co-opting algal genes, along with acquiring de novo genes, and that the former would account for the molecular clock predating the fossil record. ..."

! P.G. Gensel et al. (2020): Back to the Beginnings: The Silurian-Devonian as a Time of Major Innovation in Plants and Their Communities PDF file, pp 367–398. In: Nature through Time: Virtual field trips through the Nature of the past. Springer, Textbooks in Earth Sciences, Geography and Environment. (eds Martinetto E., Tschopp E., Gastaldo R.A.), pp. 159–185. Springer International Publishing, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35058-1_6.
See likewise here.
! Note figure 15.20: Phylogenetic relationships between the major Paleozoic plant groups.

! P.G. Gensel (2008): The earliest land plants. In PDF, The Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, 39: 459-477.
See also here.

P. Gerrienne et al. (2016): Plant evolution and terrestrialization during Palaeozoic times - the phylogenetic context. Abstract, Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology.

Philippe Gerrienne et al. (2011): A Simple Type of Wood in Two Early Devonian Plants. Abstract, Science, 333. See also here (E. Brown, The Sacramento Bee), and there.

Philippe Gerrienne and Paul Gonez (2010): Early evolution of life cycles in embryophytes: A focus on the fossil evidence of gametophyte/sporophyte size and morphological complexity. Journal of Systematics and Evolution, 49: 1-16.

! M.R. Gibling et al. (2014): Palaeozoic co-evolution of rivers and vegetation: a synthesis of current knowledge. In PDF, Proceedings of the Geologists´ Association, 125: 524-533.

! M.R. Gibling and N.S. Davies (2012): Palaeozoic landscapes shaped by plant evolution. In PDF, Nature Geoscience, 5. See also here (abstract).

B. Gieren (2006): Die Landpflanzenevolution im Phanerozoikum aus petrographischer und geochemischer Sicht. PDF file, in German. Thesis, Georg-August-Universität, Gõttingen.

E.M. Gifford and A.S. Foster (1988): Morphology and Evolution of Vascular Plants. In PDF, 3rd edition, (New York: Freeman). See also here.

M.A. Gitzendanner et al. (2018): Methods for exploring the plant tree of life. In PDF, Applications in Plant Sciences, 6. See also here. Introduction for the special issue: Methods for Exploring the Plant Tree of Life.

R. Gorelick and K. Olson (2011): Is lack of cycad (Cycadales) diversity a result of a lack of polyploidy? Abstract, Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 165: 156-167.

R. Gorelick (2001): Did insect pollination cause increased seed plant diversity? PDF file, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 74: 407-427.

S.R. Gradstein and H. Kerp (2012): A Brief History of Plants on Earth. Google books, The Geologic Time Scale 2012. See also here (Table of contents, Elsevier).

Alan Graham (1993): 3. History of the Vegetation: Cretaceous (Maastrichian) - Tertiary. PDF file, Vol. 1. Flora of North America north of Mexico. See also here.

! Linda E. Graham et al. (2000): The origin of plants: Body plan changes contributing to a major evolutionary radiation. Abstracts, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 97: 4535-4540.
! See also at here. (in PDF).

J. Gravendyck et al. (2022): Early Angiosperms - How far can we reliably go back in the pollen record. Abstract, 11th European Palaeobotany and Palynology Conference Abstracts, Program and Proceedings, Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm.

J. Gray and W. Shear (1992): Early life on land. In PDF, American Scientist.

S.F. Greb et al. (2006): Evolution and Importance of Wetlands in Earth History. PDF file, In: DiMichele, W.A., and Greb, S., eds., Wetlands Through Time: Geological Society of America, Special Publication, 399: 1-40.
Rhacophyton and Archaeopteris in a Devonian wetland as well as Pennsylvanian, Permian, Triassic and Cretaceous wetland plant reconstructions.
Note figure 1: Evolution of wetland types in the Silurian and Devonian.
See also here.
Still available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

K. Gurung et al. (2022): Climate windows of opportunity for plant expansion during the Phanerozoic. Open access, Nature Communications, 13.
Note figure 1: Approximate estimations of plant evolution and Phanerozoic time periods.
Figure 7: Potential biomass of plant functional types across the Phanerozoic.
"... we identify two key ‘windows of opportunity’ during the Ordovician and Jurassic-Paleogene capable of supporting dramatic expansions of potential plant biomass. These conditions are driven by continental dispersion, paleolatitude of continental area and a lack of glaciation, ..."

S.G. Hao and J.Z. Xue (2013): Earliest record of megaphylls and leafy structures, and their initial diversification. In PDF, Chin. Sci. Bull., 58: 2784-2793.

! J. Harholt et al. (2015): Why Plants Were Terrestrial from the Beginning. Abstract, Trends in Plant Science, 21: 96-101.

B.J. Harris et al. (2021): Divergent evolutionary trajectories of bryophytes and tracheophytes from a complex common ancestor of land plants. bioRxiv, see also here.
Note figure 3: The timescale of land plant evolution.
"... Here we investigate the evolution of the land plants (embryophytes) and their two main lineages, the tracheophytes (vascular plants) and bryophytes (non-vascular plants).
[...] extant tracheophytes and bryophytes are both highly derived; as a result, understanding the origin of land plants requires tracing character evolution across the diversity of modern lineages.

B.J. Harris et al. (2020): Phylogenomic evidence for the monophyly of bryophytes and the reductive evolution of stomata: Free access, Current Biology, 30: 2001-2012.
"... Our analyses recover bryophyte monophyly and demonstrate that the guard cell toolkit is more ancient than has been appreciated previously.
[...] the first embryophytes possessed stomata that were more sophisticated than previously envisioned and that the stomata of bryophytes have undergone reductive evolution, including their complete loss from liverworts ..."

! C.J. Harrison and J.L. Morris (2017): The origin and early evolution of vascular plant shoots and leaves. Free access, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 373: 20160496.

C.J. Harrison (2017): Development and genetics in the evolution of land plant body plans. In PDF, Phil. Trans. R. Soc., B 372. See also here (abstract).

M. Haworth et al. (2011): Stomatal control as a driver of plant evolution. In PDF, J. Exp. Bot., 62: 2419-2423.

Alan Haywood, Leeds: Plants and Earth History. Powerpoint presentation.

T. He et al. (2019): Fire as a key driver of Earth's biodiversity. In PDF, Biological Reviews. See also here.

T. He and B.B. Lamont (2017): Baptism by fire: the pivotal role of ancient conflagrations in evolution of the Earth´s flora. National Science Review. See also here (in PDF).

! T.A. Heath et al. (2014): The fossilized birth–death process for coherent calibration of divergence-time estimates. Open access, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 111: E2957–E2966.

Scott A. Heckathorn, Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Toledo, Ohio, USA:
Biodiversity lecture notes, Powerpoint presentations. See especially:
Plant Diversity I: How Plants Colonized Land.
Plant Diversity II:&xnbsp; The Evolution of Seed Plants.
These expired links are available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

J.B. Hedges (2004): A molecular timescale of eukaryote evolution and the rise of complex multicellular life. BMC evolutionary biology.

University of Heidelberg, Germany:
Aktuelle Themen in der pflanzlichen Biodiversitätsforschung (in PDF). Lecture notes, in German.
J. Griller, PDF page 1-18: "Die verwandtschaftliche Stellung der Moose".
A. Olbrich, PDF page 19-55: "Verwandtschaftliche Beziehungen der Farnpflanzen".
(?), PDF page 56-92: "Die verwandtschaftliche Stellung der Gymnospermen".
F. Haßfeld, PDF page 93-102: "Die verwandtschaftliche Stellung der Angiospermen".

! P.S. Herendeen et al. (2017): Palaeobotanical redux: revisiting the age of the angiosperms. In PDF, Nature Plants 3. See also here.

F. Herrera et al. (2015): A New Voltzian Seed Cone from the Early Cretaceous of Mongolia and Its Implications for the Evolution of Ancient Conifers. In PDF, Int. J. Plant Sci., 176: 791-809.

J. Herting and T. Stützel (2021): Evolution of the coniferous seed scale. Free access, Annals of Botany.

A.J. Hetherington and L. Dolan (2019): Rhynie chert fossils demonstrate the independent origin and gradual evolution of lycophyte roots. Abstract, Current opinion in plant biology, 47: 119-126. See also here and there (in PDF).

A.J. Hetherington and L. Dolan (2018): Stepwise and independent origins of roots among land plants. Free access, Nature, 561: 235–238. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2019.

T.E. Higham et al. (2022): The Evolution of Mechanical Properties of Conifer and Angiosperm Woods. In PDF, Integrative and Comparative Biology, 62: 668–682.
See also here.

! M.F. Hohmann-Marriott and R.E. Blankenship (2011): Evolution of Photosynthesis. In PDF, Annual Review of Plant Biology, 62: 515-548.
See also here.
Note figure 2: Evolution of life and photosynthesis in geological context, highlighting the emergence of groups of photosynthetic organisms.

Kent E. Holsinger, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT: Reproductive systems and evolution in vascular plants (PDF file).

M. Hrabovský (2021): Leaf evolution and classification. 3. Gymnospermopsida. In PDF, Acta Botanica Universitatis Comenianae, 57.
! Many black and white contour drawings.

M. Hrabovský (2020): Leaf evolution and classification. 2. Polypodiopsida. In PDF, Acta Botanica Universitatis Comenianae, 56.
! Many black and white contour drawings.

M. Hrabovský (2020): Leaf evolution and classification. 1. Lycopodiopsida. In PDF, Acta Botanica Universitatis Comenianae, 55.
See also here.
! Many black and white contour drawings.

M. Hübers and H. Kerp (2012): Oldest known mosses discovered in Mississippian (late Visean) strata of Germany. In PDF, Geology, 40: 755–758.
See also here.

I.B. Huegele and S.R. Manchester (2020): An Early Paleocene Carpoflora from the Denver Basin of Colorado, USA, and Its Implications for Plant-Animal Interactions and Fruit Size Evolution. Free access, Int. J. Plant Sci., 181: 646–665.

! C.E. Hughes et al. (2015): Evolutionary plant radiations: where, when, why and how? In PDF, New Phytologist, 207: 249-253. See also here.

! Norman F. Hughes (1994): The Enigma of Angiosperm Origins. 405 pages. Provided by Cambridge University Press through the Google Print Publisher Program.
See also here.

Norman F. Hughes (1982): Palaeobiology of Angiosperm Origins: Problems of Mesozoic Seed-Plant Evolution. Provided by Google books.

A. Ielpi et al. (2022): The impact of vegetation on meandering rivers. In PDF, Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, 3: 165–178.
See also here.
! Note fig. 2: Graphical timeline summary of the main evolutionary and fluvial-geomorphic events that accompanied the Palaeozoic rise of land plants, with select plant types and their approximate first appearance.
! Fig. 4: Meandering rivers in barren and vegetated landscapes.

K. Ishizaki (2017): Evolution of land plants: insights from molecular studies on basal lineages. Abstract, Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Biochemistry, 81.

D. Jablonski and S.M. Edie (2023): Perfect storms shape biodiversity in time and space. Free access, Evolutionary Journal of the Linnean Society, 2.
"... Many of the most dramatic patterns in biological diversity are created by “Perfect Storms” —rare combinations of mutually reinforcing factors that push origination, extinction, or diversity accommodation to extremes. These patterns include the strongest diversification events [...] This approach necessarily weighs contributing factors, identifying their often non-linear and time-dependent interactions ..."

! M.E. James et al. (2023): Replicated Evolution in Plants. Open access, Annual Review of Plant Biology, 74: 697-725.
"...Similar traits and functions commonly evolve in nature. Here, we explore patterns of replicated evolution across the plant kingdom and discuss the processes responsible for such patterns.
[...] The term replicated evolution can be used to encompass both convergence and parallelism ..."

K. Jordan et al.(2008): An Interactive Timeline of Plant Evolution. See also here (in PDF). Note fig. 1.

N.A. Jud (2015): Fossil evidence for a herbaceous diversification of early eudicot angiosperms during the Early Cretaceous. In PDF, Proc. R. Soc., B, 282. See also here.

Kenneth G. Karol, Richard M. McCourt, Matthew T. Cimino, and Charles F. Delwiche, Science Magazine: The Closest Living Relatives of Land Plants. This analysis supports the hypothesis that the land plants are placed phylogenetically within the Charophyta, identifies the Charales (stoneworts) as the closest living relatives of plants.

! O. Katz (2018): Extending the scope of Darwin’s ‘abominable mystery’: integrative approaches to understanding angiosperm origins and species richness. Open access, Annals of Botany, 121: 1–8.
See also here (Botany One).

M. Alan Kazlev, Palaeos, The Evolutionary History of Green Plants. This website illustrates the diversity of green plants, according to modern palaeobotanical and paleontological understanding.
Still available via Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

M. Alan Kazlev and Toby White, Australia:
Palaeos: The trace of Life on Earth. The Palaeos Site is dedicated to providing a detailed and - at least in parts - comprehensive overview of the history of life on Earth. Use the menu bars at the top and (in longer pages) bottom of the page to navigate.
Go to: Chlorobionta: Land Plants.
Evolution of Land Plants.

J.E. Keeley et al. (2011): Fire as an evolutionary pressure shaping plant traits. PDF file, Trends in Plant Science, 16.

Kelber, K.-P. (2003): Sterben und Neubeginn im Spiegel der Paläofloren. PDF file (17 MB!), in German. Plant evolution, the fossil record of plants and the aftermath of mass extinction events. pp. 38-59, 212-215; In: Hansch, W. (ed.): Katastrophen in der Erdgeschichte - Wendezeiten des Lebens.- museo 19, Heilbronn.

! P. Kenrick (2017): Changing expressions: a hypothesis for the origin of the vascular plant life cycle. Free access, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 373: 20170149.
Note reconstructions of early land plants in fig. 4 and 5: Aglaophyton majus, Horneophyton lignieri, Remyophyton delicatum, Lyonophyton rhyniense, Lycopodium annotinum.

P. Kenrick and C. Strullu-Derrien (2014): The Origin and Early Evolution of Roots. In PDF, Plant Physiology, 166: 570-580. See also here (abstract).

! P. Kenrick et al. (2012): A timeline for terrestrialization: consequences for the carbon cycle in the Palaeozoic. In PDF, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 367: 519-536.
Website saved by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

! Paul Kenrick (2011): Timescales and timetrees. PDF file, New Phytologist, 192. See also here.

P. Kenrick (2000): The relationships of vascular plants. PDF file.

! P. Kenrick & P.R. Crane (1997): The origin and early evolution of plants on land. PDF file, Nature.
See also here.

! H. Kerp et al. (2020): Plants, spores, and pollen. Pdf file, in: F.M. Gradstein et al. (eds.): The Geological Time Scale 2020.

Hans Kerp, Palaeobotanical Research Group, Westfälische Wilhelms University, Münster: A History of Palaeozoic Forests. An introductory text with many helpful links directly related to the history of Palaeozoic forests. 7 chapters provide information about: The earliest land plants; Towards a tree-like growth habit; The earliest forests; The Carboniferous coal swamp forests; The floral change at the end of the Westphalian; Stefanian and Rotliegend floras; Is there a floral break in the Permian?
Now provided by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

Michael Knee, Department of Horticulture and Crop Science, Ohio State University, Columbus: General Plant Biology Online Resources. Lecture notes.
Available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

Michael Knee, Department of Horticulture and Crop Science, Ohio State University:
General Plant Biology, Horticulture and Crop Science 300, Online Resources. Go to: ANTHOPHYTA I,
Evolution of flowering plants, and

! A.H. Knoll and M.A. Nowak (2017): The timetable of evolution. Free access, Science Advances, 3.
Note fig. 1: The evolutionary timetable, showing the course of evolution as inferred from fossils, environmental proxies, and high-resolution geochronology.

A.H. Knoll (2014): Paleobiological Perspectives on Early Eukaryotic Evolution. In PDF, see also here.

! A.H. Knoll and K.J. Niklas (1987): Adaptation, plant evolution, and the fossil record. Free access, Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, 50: 127-149.

M. Koltzenburg and G. Weitbrecht, Reutlingen, Germany: Floren- und Vegetationsgeschichte Plant evolution in a nutshell (DOC file, in German).
Now recovered from the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

J. Kowal et al. (2018): From rhizoids to roots? Experimental evidence of mutualism between liverworts and ascomycete fungi. In PDF, Annals Of Botany, 121: 221-227. See also here.

Valentin A. Krassilov (1987): Palaeobotany of the mesophyticum: state of the art. In PDF, Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, 50: 231-254. Provided by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

! M. Krings et al. (2012): Fungal Endophytes as a Driving Force in Land Plant Evolution: Evidence from the Fossil Record. In PDF; D. Southworth (ed.): Biocomplexity of Plant-Fungal Interactions (John Wiley & Sons).

P. Kumar et al. (2023): How plants conquered land: evolution of terrestrial adaptation. Open access, Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 35: 5–14.
"... The transition of plants from water to land is considered one of the most significant events in the evolution of life
[...] This study highlights the morphological and genomic innovations that allow plants to integrate life on Earth ..."

U. Kutschera and K.J. Niklas (2004): The modern theory of biological evolution: an expanded synthesis. PDF file, Naturwissenschaften, 91: 255-276.

! C.C. Labandeira et al. (2016): The evolutionary convergence of mid-Mesozoic lacewings and Cenozoic butterflies. See also here (in PDF). Proc. R. Soc., B 283.
Heritagedaily: Paleobotanist plays role in discovery of "Jurassic butterflies". An artist´s rendering of the butterfly Oregramma illecebrosa, consuming pollen drops from Triassic bennettitales.

Conrad C. Labandeira (2010): The Pollination of Mid Mesozoic Seed Plants and the Early History of Long-proboscid Insects. PDF file, Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden, 97: 469-513. See also here.

C.C. Labandeira (2005): Invasion of the continents: cyanobacterial crusts to tree-inhabiting arthropods. In PDF, Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 20.

B. Laenen et al. (2014): Extant diversity of bryophytes emerged from successive post-Mesozoic diversification bursts. In PDF. See also here (abstract).

A.D.B. Leakey and J.A. Lau (2012): Evolutionary context for understanding and manipulating plant responses to past, present and future atmospheric [CO₂]. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 367: 613-629. See als here (in PDF).

A.R. Leitch and I.J. Leitch (2012): Ecological and genetic factors linked to contrasting genome dynamics in seed plants. In PDF, New Phytologist, 194: 629-646.

S. Lehtonen et al. (2020): Exploring the phylogeny of the marattialean ferns. Open access, Cladistics.
Note fig. 4: Parsimony-dated phylogeny and Bayesian historical biogeography of the marattialean ferns.
"... We resolved the fossil genera Marattiopsis, Danaeopsis and Qasimia as members of the monophyletic family Marattiaceae, and the Carboniferous genera Sydneia and Radstockia as the monophyletic sister of all other marattialean ferns. ..."

! F. Leliaert et al. (2011): Into the deep: new discoveries at the base of the green plant phylogeny. PDF file, BioEssays. 33: 683-692. See also here.
! Note figure 1: Phylogenetic relationships among the main lineages of green plants.
"... A schism early in their evolution gave rise to two major lineages, one of which diversified in the world’s oceans and gave rise to a large diversity of marine and freshwater green algae (Chlorophyta) while the other gave rise to a diverse array of freshwater green algae and the land plants (Streptophyta) ..."

T.M. Lenton et al. (2016): Earliest land plants created modern levels of atmospheric oxygen. Free access, PNAS, 113.

! T.M. Lenton (2001): The role of land plants, phosphorus weathering and fire in the rise and regulation of atmospheric oxygen. In PDF, Global Change Biology, 7: 613-629.

! K. Lepot (2020): Signatures of early microbial life from the Archean (4 to 2.5 Ga) eon. Free access, Earth-Science Reviews, 209. See also here.

A.B. Leslie and R.B.J. Benson (2022): Neontological and paleontological congruence in the evolution of Podocarpaceae (coniferales) reproductive morphology. Free access, Front. Ecol. Evol., 10: 1058746. doi: 10.3389/fevo.2022.1058746
"... Although molecular and fossil data regarding the deep evolution of Podocarpaceae reproductive structures are sparse, they are complementary. Both suggest that cones, seeds, and leaves evolved as a suite of traits in a stepwise manner in response to changing ecological conditions from the Early Cretaceous through the early Cenozoic ..."

A.B. Leslie and J.M. Losada (2019): Reproductive Ontogeny and the Evolution of Morphological Diversity in Conifers and Other Plants. Free access, Integrative and Comparative Biology, 59: 548–558.
Note figure 4: Depictions of ovuliferous complex and ovule/seed ontogeny in different conifer groups through time.

A.B. Leslie et al. (2018): An overview of extant conifer evolution from the perspective of the fossil record. Abstract, American Journal of Botany, 105: 1–14. See also here (in PDF).

! A.B. Leslie et al. (2015): Integration and macroevolutionary patterns in the pollination biology of conifers. In PDF, Evolution, 69: 1573-1583.

! A.B. Leslie et al. (2012): Hemisphere-scale differences in conifer evolutionary dynamics. In PDF, PNAS, 109: 16217-16221. See also here.

Gerhard Leubner, The Seed Biology Place, University Freiburg, Germany: Seed evolution. Origin and evolution of the seed habit.

! H.T. Li et al. (2019): Origin of angiosperms and the puzzle of the Jurassic gap. Abstract, Nature Plants, 5: 461–470. See also here (in PDF).
"... With a well-resolved plastid tree and 62?fossil calibrations, we dated the origin of the crown angiosperms to the Upper Triassic, with major angiosperm radiations occurring in the Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous. This estimated crown age is substantially earlier than that of unequivocal angiosperm fossils, and the difference is here termed the ‘Jurassic angiosperm gap’. ..."

F.-W. Li et al. (2018): Fern genomes elucidate land plant evolution and cyanobacterial symbioses. Open access, Nature Plants, 4: 460–472.

! R. Ligrone et al. (2012): Major transitions in the evolution of early land plants: a bryological perspective. Free access, Annals of botany, 109: 851–871.

! A. Linkies et al. (2010). The evolution of seeds. In PDF, New Phytologist, 186: 817-831. See also here (abstract).

B.H. Lomax et al. (2014): Reconstructing relative genome size of vascular plants through geological time. Free access, New Phytologist, 201: 636–644.

! C.V. Looy et al. (2014): The late Paleozoic ecological-evolutionary laboratory, a land-plant fossil record perspective. In PDF, The Sedimentary Record, 12: 4-18. See also here.

! A.M. López-Martínez et al. (2023): Angiosperm flowers reached their highest morphological diversity early in their evolutionary history. Open access, New Phytologist, 241: 1348–1360. doi: 10.1111/nph.19389.
"... Based on a comprehensive dataset focusing on 30 characters describing floral structure across angiosperms, we used 1201 extant and 121 fossil flowers to measure floral disparity and explore patterns of floral evolution through time and across lineages ..."

! G.Q. Liu et al. (2022): The Molecular Phylogeny of Land Plants: Progress and Future Prospects. Open access, Diversity, 14 (from the Special Issue Ecology, Evolution and Diversity of Plants).
Note figure 1: Summary of phylogenetic relationships among major clades of land plants.

! Y. Liu et al. (2022): The Cycas genome and the early evolution of seed plants. Open access, Nature Plants, 8: 389–401.
"... Although the major cycad lineages are ancient, modern cycad species emerged from several relatively recent diversifications ..."

Y. Lu et al. (2014): Phylogeny and divergence times of gymnosperms inferred from single-copy nuclear genes. PloS one.

! W.J. Lucas et al. (2013): The Plant Vascular System: Evolution, Development and Functions. In PDF, Journal of Integrative Plant Biology, 55: 294-388. See also here.

X. Ma et al. (2023): A reinvestigation of multiple independent evolution and Triassic-Jurassic origin of multicellular Volvocine algae. Open access, Genome Biology and Evolution, evad142, https://doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evad142.
"... The volvocine algae, a unique clade of chlorophytes with diverse cell morphology, provide an appealing model for investigating the evolution of multicellularity and development
[...] the dating analyses indicate that the volvocine algae occurred during the Cryogenian to Ediacaran (696.6–551.1 Ma), and multicellularity in the volvocine algae originated from the Triassic to Jurassic ..."

! MAdLand — Molecular Adaptation to Land: Plant Evolution to Change.
The MAdLand community has made contributions to publicly available data resources for plant (evolutionary) biology and expanded the list of organismal systems accessible for research. Note the statement of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) for the established Priority Programme SPP 2237. Worth checking out:
MAdLand Publications.
The interactive and downloadable Plant Evolution Poster.
Exhibition posters "Grün, Steine, Erde. Unsere Welt im Wandel" (in German, by M. Schreiber and S. Gould).

S. Magallón et al. (2015): A metacalibrated time-tree documents the early rise of flowering plant phylogenetic diversity. In PDF, New Phytologist. See also here.

! S Magallón et al. (2013): Land plant evolutionary timeline: gene effects are secondary to fossil constraints in relaxed clock estimation of age and substitution rates. Free access, American Journal of Botany, 100: 556-573.

! S. Magallón (2009): Flowering plants (Magnoliophyta). PDF file, In: S.B. Hedges and S. Kumar (eds.): The Timetree of Life (see here).

S. Magallón and A. Castillo (2009): Angiosperm diversification through time. Free access, American Journal of Botany, 96: 349-365.

! S. Magallón et al. (2013): Land plant evolutionary timeline: Gene effects are secondary to fossil constraints in relaxed clock estimation of age and substitution rates. Open access, American Journal of Botany, 100: 556-573.

! Susana Magallón and Khidir W. Hilu (2009): Land plants (Embryophyta). PDF file, In: S.B. Hedges and S. Kumar (eds.): The Timetree of Life (see here).
These expired links are now available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

K. Mao et al. (2012): Distribution of living Cupressaceae reflects the breakup of Pangea. In PDF, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 109: 7793-7798.

P.D. Mannion et al. (2014): The latitudinal biodiversity gradient through deep time. In PDF, Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 29: 42–50. See also here.

A.O. Marron et al. (2016): The Evolution of Silicon Transport in Eukaryotes. In PDF, Mol. Biol. Evol. See also here.

! W.F. Martin and J.F. Allen (2018): An algal greening of land. Free access, Cell, 174: 256-258. See also here.
Note figure 1: Streptophyte Algae and the Rise of Atmospheric Oxygen.

! C. Martín-Closas (2003): The fossil record and evolution of freshwater plants: a review. PDF file, Geologica Acta, 1: 315-338.

Patrick T. Martone et al. (2009): Discovery of Lignin in Seaweed Reveals Convergent Evolution of Cell-Wall Architecture. Abstract, Current Biology, Volume 19, Issue 2, 169-175. See also here.

N.P. Maslova et al. (2021): Recent Studies of Co-Evolutionary Relationships of Fossil Plants and Fungi: Success, Problems, Prospects. In PDF, Paleontological Journal, 55: 1–17. See also here.

! S. Mathews (2009): Phylogenetic relationships among seed plants: persistent questions and the limits of molecular data. Free access, American Journal of Botany, 96: 228-236.

W.J. Matthaeus et al. (2022): Stems matter: Xylem physiological limits are an accessible and critical improvement to models of plant gas exchange in deep time. In PDF, Front. Ecol. Evol., 10:955066. doi: 10.3389/fevo.2022.955066.
See also here.
Note figure 1: Vascular plant hydraulic pathway conducting element features.

M.R. May et al. (2021): Inferring the Total-Evidence Timescale of Marattialean Fern Evolution in the Face of Model Sensitivity. Free access, Systematic Biology, syab020, https://doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/syab020. See also here.

S.A.M. McAdam et al. (2021): Stomata: the holey grail of plant evolution. In PDF, Am. J. Bot., 108: 366–371. See also here.

! R.M. McCourt et al. (2023): Green land: Multiple perspectives on green algal evolution and the earliest land plants. In PDF, American Journal of Botany 110. See also here (Free to read).
! Note figure 1: Green plant diversification in the context of the fossil record.
"... Green plants, broadly defined as green algae and the land plants (together, Viridiplantae), constitute the primary eukaryotic lineage that successfully colonized Earth's emergent landscape.
[...] We present the process not as a step-by-step advancement from primitive green cells to an inevitable success of embryophytes, but rather as a process of adaptations and exaptations that allowed multiple clades of green plants ..."

! J.C. McElwain et al. (2024): Functional traits of fossil plants. Open access, New Phytologist.
Note figure 2: Examples of fossil plant functional traits.
Figure 4: A ranked list of paleo-functional traits that can be applied to fossil plants.
"What plant remnants have withstood taphonomic filtering, fragmentation, and alteration in their journey to become part of the fossil record provide unique information on how plants functioned in paleo-ecosystems through their traits. Plant traits are measurable morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical, or phenological characteristics
[...] We demonstrate how valuable inferences on paleo-ecosystem processes (pollination biology, herbivory), past nutrient cycles, paleobiogeography, paleo-demography (life history), and Earth system history can be derived through the application of paleo-functional traits to fossil plants ..."

J.C. McElwain et al. (2016): Assessing the role of atmospheric oxygen in plant evolution. Abstract, starting on PDF page 44.
Abstracts, XIV International Palynological Congress, X International Organisation of Palaeobotany Conference, Salvador, Brazil.

! J.C. McElwain and S.W. Punyasena (2007): Mass extinction events and the plant fossil record. PDF file, Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 22: 548-557. See also here (abstract).

! S. McLoughlin (2021): Gymnosperms: History of Life: Plants: Gymnosperms. In PDF, p. 476-500; In: Elias, S. & Alderton, D. (eds.), Encyclopedia of Geology, Amsterdam, Elsevier. See also here.
! Note fig. 8: One model for the evolution of seed plants showing the stratigraphic ranges and relative abundance of the major groups.

S. McLoughlin (2017): Antarctica’s Glossopteris forests. In PDF, In: 52 More Things You Should Know About Palaeontology, eds. A. Cullum, A.W. Martinius. Nova Scotia: Agile Libre, p. 22-23. See also here.

S. McLoughlin and B.P. Kear (2014): Gondwanan Mesozoic biotas and bioevents. Abstract.

! Stephen McLoughlin (2001): The breakup history of Gondwana and its impact on pre-Cenozoic floristic provincialism. In PDF, Australian Journal of Botany, 49: 271-300. See also here (abstract).

B. Meyer-Berthaud et al. (2016): The terrestrialization process: a palaeobotanical and palynological perspective. In PDF, Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, 224: 1–3.

John M. Miller (2006), School of Pure and Applied Sciences, University of the South Pacific (USP):
! Origin of Angiosperms. Go to: Insect-Plant Mutualisms.
Still available via Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

! B.J.W. Mills et al. (2017): Nutrient acquisition by symbiotic fungi governs Palaeozoic climate transition. Open access, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 373.

R.L. Mitchell et al. (2023): Terrestrial surface stabilisation by modern analogues of the earliest land plants: A multi-dimensional imaging study. Open access, Geobiology.
Note figure 1: Summary chart highlighting the evolution of different CGC elements [cryptogamic ground covers] from contrasting molecular, phylogenetic and fossil dating methods, and schematic land plant phylogeny of modern terrestrial organisms, focussing on the bryophytes and specific liverwort genera.

Sebastian Molnar, Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver: Evolution and the Origins of Life. A directory of introductions concerning evolution, with a bias to Plant Biology and Evolution. Excellent examples about how evolution works can be seen from the plant world. Go to: Angiosperm Origins and Evolution, or The Evolution of Polyploidy, and Summary: Polyploid Evolution.

! J.L. Morris et al. (2015): Investigating Devonian trees as geo-engineers of past climates: linking palaeosols to palaeobotany and experimental geobiology. In PDF, Palaeontology, 58: 787-801. See also here.

! Terence M. Murphy, Thomas L. Rost and Michael G. Barbour (2015), University of California, Davis, CA:
Plant Biology. Lecture notes, in PDF. Please take notice: Book announcement.
See for instance: Bryophytes.
The Early Tracheophytes.

N.S. Nagalingum et al. (2011): Recent Synchronous Radiation of a Living Fossil. Abstract.
"Using fossil-calibrated molecular phylogenies, we show that cycads underwent a near synchronous global rediversification beginning in the late Miocene, followed by a slowdown toward the Recent. Although the cycad lineage is ancient, our timetrees indicate that living cycad species are not much older than ~12 million years". See also here. In PDF, Science 334.

Y. Nie et al. (2020): Accounting for uncertainty in the evolutionary timescale of green plants through clock-partitioning and fossil calibration strategies. In PDF, Syst. Biol., 69: 1–16. See also here.

Nature Science Update (December 8, 1999): One for the Vine. "A prickly climbing vine", Vasovinea tianii (Gigantopteridales), that lived more than 250 million years ago could shed light on the origin of flowering plants.
This expired link is available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

! M.P. Nelsen et al. (2020): No support for the emergence of lichens prior to the evolution of vascular plants. In PDF, Gebiology, 18: 3-13. See also here.
! Note figure 2: Crown age estimates for LFF [lichen�forming fungi] and putative origins of LFA [lichen�forming algae].
"... As unambiguous fossil data are lacking to demonstrate the presence of lichens prior to vascular plants, we utilize an alternate approach to assess their historic presence in early terrestrial ecosystems. Here, we analyze new time-calibrated phylogenies of ascomycete fungi and chlorophytan algae
[...] Coupled with the absence of unambiguous fossil data, our work finds no support for lichens having mediated global change during the Neoproterozoic-early Paleozoic prior to vascular plants..."

A.B. Nicotra et al. (2011): The evolution and functional significance of leaf shape in the angiosperms. In PDF, Functional Plant Biology, 38: 535-552. See also here.

! Y. Nie et al. (2020): Accounting for uncertainty in the evolutionary timescale of green plants through clock-partitioning and fossil calibration strategies. In PDF, Syst. Biol., 69: 1–16. See also here.
! Note figure 5: Time-tree of green plants.
! "... By taking into account various sources of uncertainty, we estimate that crown-group green plants originated in the Paleoproterozoic–Mesoproterozoic (1679.7–1025.6 Ma), crown-group Chlorophyta and Streptophyta originated in the Mesoproterozoic–Neoproterozoic (1480.0–902.9 Ma and 1571.8–940.9 Ma), and crown-group land plants originated in the Ediacaran to middle Ordovician (559.3– 459.9 Ma). ..."

S. Nigris et al. (2021): Fleshy Structures Associated with Ovule Protection and Seed Dispersal in Gymnosperms: A Systematic and Evolutionary Overview. Open access, Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences, 40.

! K.J. Niklas (2023): Deciphering the hidden complexity of early land plant reproduction. Free access, New Phytologist.

K.J. Niklas and B.H. Tiffney (2022): Viridiplantae Body Plans Viewed Through the Lens of the Fossil Record and Molecular Biology. Open access, Integrative and Comparative Biology,
"... A review of the fossil record coupled with insights gained from molecular and developmental biology reveal a series of body plan transformations that gave rise to the first land plants. Across diverse algal clades, including the green algae and their descendants, the plant body plan underwent a unicellular -- colonial -- simple multicellular -- complex multicellular transformation series. ..."
Note figure 4: Scenarios for the evolution of the first land plant sporophyte resulting from delayed zygotic meiosis.

K.J. Niklas et al. (2017): The evolution of hydrophobic cell wall biopolymers: from algae to angiosperms. Abstract, J. Exp. Bot.

Karl J. Niklas (2016): Plant Evolution: An Introduction to the History of Life. Book announcement.
Worth checking out: ! Introduction.
Note figure 0.1: A suggested reconstruction of the Carboniferous (359–300 Mya) flora.
! Figure 0.3: Estimates of the percent of present-day levels of atmospheric oxygen.
See also here (Google books).

! K.J. Niklas (2015): Measuring the tempo of plant death and birth. Open access, New Phytologist.

! K.J. Niklas and U. Kutschera (2010): The evolution of the land plant life cycle. Free access, New Phytologist, 185: 27-41.

K.J. Niklas (2004): Computer models of early land plant evolution. In PDF, Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci., 32: 47-66.

Karl Niklas, Plant Biology, Cornell University (page hosted by Access Excellence): Plant Evolution: Adaptation or Historical Accident?. See also here, and there.

K.J. Niklas and T. Speck (2001): Evolutionary trends in safety factors against wind-induced stem failure. Open access, American Journal of Botany, 88: 1266-1278.

! K.J. Niklas (2000): The Evolution of Plant Body Plans - A Biomechanical Perspective. In PDF, Annals of Botany, 85: 411-438.
See also here.

! K.J. Niklas (1994): Morphological Evolution Through Complex Domains of Fitness. In: Fitch, W.M. And Ayala, F.J. (eds.):
! Tempo And Mode In Evolution: Genetics And Paleontology 50 Years After Simpson. Open access! National Academies Press (US); Washington (DC).

Karl Niklas, (Section of Plant Biology, Cornell University), Access Excellance, BioForum 4, "Theoretical Issues in Plant Biology". Now available by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.
BioForum is a series of lectures, presented by California Academy of Sciences, in which scientists share their research results with high school biology teachers. Plant Evolution: Adaptation or Historical Accident? Is plant evolution largely adaptive or is it contingent on historical accidents? Dr. Niklas discuss in some detail a computer generated model dealing with the early evolution of land plants that can be used to predict how plant architecture must change to assure evolutionary success as the environment changes.

H. Nowak et al. (2020): Palaeophytogeographical Patterns Across the Permian–Triassic Boundary. Open access, Front. Earth Sci.

T. Nyman et al. (2012): Climate-driven diversity dynamics in plants and plant-feeding insects. Free access, Ecology Letters, 14: 1-10.

A.A. Óladóttir, Iceland GeoSurvey, Reykjavik, Iceland: An Introduction to the Mesozoic Palaeobotany. In PDF.

J. Ollerton and E. Coulthard (2009): Evolution of Animal Pollination. In PDF, Science, 326.

Mark E. Olson (2012): Linear Trends in Botanical Systematics and the Major Trends of Xylem Evolution. In PDF.

! R. Omlor and J.W. Kadereit (2005), Institut für Spezielle Botanik und Botanischer Garten, Mainz, Germany:
Evolution der Landpflanzen (in German).
Still available via Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

! J.G. Onyenedum and M.R. Pace (2021): The role of ontogeny in wood diversity and evolution. Free access, American Journal of Botany, 108: 2331-2355.
See also here.

! S. Opluštil et al. (2022): Carboniferous macrofloral biostratigraphy: an overview. Abstract, Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 512: 813-863.

! Oxford Bibliographies.
Oxford Bibliographies offers exclusive, authoritative research guides. Combining the best features of an annotated bibliography and a high-level encyclopedia, this cutting-edge resource directs researchers to the best available scholarship across a wide variety of subjects. Go to:
Fossils (by Kevin Boyce).
Evolution of Land Plants (by Charles C. Davis and Sarah Mathews).
Evolution of Fungi (by David Hibbett).
Bryophyte Ecology (by Heinjo During).

Barry A. Palevitz, "Discovering Relatives in the Flowering Plant Family Tree". The Scientist, Volume 13, 1999: Search for: "flowering plant". Registration procedure required.

! J.D. Palmer et al. (2004): The plant tree of life: an overview and some points of view. Free access, American Journal of Botany, 91: 1437-1445.

H.S. Pardoe et al. (2021): Palaeobotanical experiences of plant diversity in deep time. 2: How to measure and analyse past plant biodiversity. In PDF, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 580. See also here.

! C. Parisod et al. (2010): Evolutionary consequences of autopolyploidy. Free access, New Phytologist, 186: 5-17.

! J.G. Pausas et al. (2018): Unearthing belowground bud banks in fire-prone ecosystems. Free access, New Phytologist, 217: 1387-1778.
Note figure 1: Stylized diagrams of 16 belowground bud bank (BBB) structures that enable plants to resprout following fire.
Figure 3: Oldest time of origin for different belowground bud bank (BBB) organs in selected angiosperm families.
"... Recognizing the diversity of BBBs provides a basis for understanding the many evolutionary pathways available to plants for responding to severe recurrent disturbances. ..."

J.G. Pausas et al. (2017): Flammability as an ecological and evolutionary driver. In PDF, Journal of Ecology, 105: 289–297.

J.G. Pausas and D. Schwilk (2012): Fire and plant evolution. Free access, New Phytologist, 193: 301-303.

£. Pawlik et al. 2020): Impact of trees and forests on the Devonian landscape and weathering processes with implications to the global Earth's system properties – A critical review. In PDF, Earth-Science Reviews, 205: doi 10.1016/j.earscirev.2020.103200.
See also here.
Note fig. 2. Spatial configuration of continents in the Devonian.
Note fig. 3: Landscape reconstruction with stands of Pseudosporochnus, up to 4 m high, with Protopteridium in shruby layer and herbaceous Drepanophycus and Protolepidodendron in understorey.
Note fig. 6: A close look at trees diversification and selected accompanying events in the Devonian.

Pearson Education, Inc.: Overview of Land Plant Evolution. Powerpoint presentation.
Snapshot taken by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

! D. Peris and F.L. Condamine (2023): The dual role of the angiosperm radiation on insect diversification. Free access, bioRxiv.
See also here.
"... We found that, among the six tested variables, angiosperms had a dual role that has changed through time with an attenuation of insect extinction in the Cretaceous and a driver of insect origination in the Cenozoic. ..."

D. Peris et al. (2017): False Blister Beetles and the Expansion of Gymnosperm-Insect Pollination Modes before Angiosperm Dominance. In PDF, Current Biology, 27. See also here.

! Rémy J. Petit and Arndt Hampe (2006): Some Evolutionary Consequences of Being a Tree. PDF file, Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst., 37: 187-214.

D. Peyrot et al. (2019): The greening of Western Australian landscapes: the Phanerozoic plant record. Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia, 102: 52-82. See also here. Worth checking out:
! Figure 9: Major plant-evolutionary events and vegetation changes in Western Australia.

H.W. Pfefferkorn et al. (2017): Impact of an icehouse climate interval on tropical vegetation and plant evolution. In PDF, Stratigraphy, 14: 365-376. See also here.

Pflanzenforschung.de (in German):
Der Farnsamer aus dem Perm (2023).
Landeroberung früher als gedacht. Bereits die Vorfahren heutiger Landpflanzen haben an Land gelebt (2016).
Die Entstehung der Pflanzenwelt (2013).
The link is to a version archived by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

! A. Piombino (2016): The Heavy Links between Geological Events and Vascular Plants Evolution: A Brief Outline. In PDF, International journal of evolutionary biology.

N.D. Pires and L. Dolan (2012): Morphological evolution in land plants: new designs with old genes. In PDF, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 367: 508-518.

! J. Pittermann et al. (2015): The structure and function of xylem in seed-free vascular plants: an evolutionary perspective. In PDF. See also here.

J. Pittermann (2010): The evolution of water transport in plants: an integrated approach. In PDF, Geobiology.
See also here.

! A.R.G. Plackett and J.C. Coates (2016): Life’s a beach – the colonization of the terrestrial environment. In PDF, New Phytologist, 212: 831–835. See also here.

Plantcode
(Stefan A. Rensing University of Freiburg, Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy).
Plantcode scientists are are interested in the evolution of plants sensu lato - i.e., the photosynthetic eukaryotes. Go to:
List of publications.

Tõnu Ploompuu, Biology, Tallinn Pedagogical University, Tallinn, Estonia: Resting and active evolution. Possible preadaptations in the early evolution of Angiosperms. See also here.

George Poinar and Greg Poinar (2018): The antiquity of floral secretory tissues that provide today’s fragrances. Abstract, Historical Biology. See also:
Schnupperten schon Dinos Blumenduft? Kreidezeitliche Blütenpflanzen könnten bereits Düfte produziert haben. In German, Scinexx.de.

Z.A. Popper et al. (2011): Evolution and Diversity of Plant Cell Walls: From Algae to Flowering Plants. In PDF, Annu. Rev. Plant Biol., 62: 567-590.

Z.A. Popper and M.G. Tuohy (2010): Beyond the Green: Understanding the Evolutionary Puzzle of Plant and Algal Cell Walls. PDF file, Plant Physiology, 153: 373-383.

! J.C. Preston et al. 2022): Plant structure and function: Evolutionary origins and underlying mechanisms. Free access, Plant Physiology.

Ernst Probst, fossilien-news, Mainz-Kostheim, Germany: Rekorde der Urzeit aus der Pflanzenwelt (in German).
The link is to a version archived by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

! K.M. Pryer et al. (2004): Phylogeny and evolution of ferns (monilophytes) with a focus on the early leptosporangiate divergences. Open access, American Journal of Botany, 91: 1582-1598.

J. Pšenicka et al. (2021): Dynamics of Silurian plants as response to climate changes. Open access, Life, 11.
Note figure 1: Silurian time scale showing conodont and graptolite biozones, stage slices and generalized ¹³Ccarb curve.
Figure 2: Silurian palaeocontinental reconstructions.

C. Puginier et al. (2021): Plant–microbe interactions that have impacted plant terrestrializations. Free access, Plant Physiology.
Note figure 1: 1 Phylogenetic tree of the Viridiplantae. showing the evolution of the AMS [arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis], the putative evolutions of lichens and clades that contain LFA [lichen forming algae] and terrestrial species.
Figure 3: Lichens and their tolerance against terrestrial-related constraints.

! M.N. Puttick et al. (2018): The Interrelationships of Land Plants and the Nature of the Ancestral Embryophyte. Free access, Current Biology, 28: 733–745.

W. Qie et al. (2023): Enhanced Continental Weathering as a Trigger for the End-Devonian Hangenberg Crisis. Open access, Geophysical Research Letters, 50: e2022GL102640.
Note figure 1A: Latest Devonian global paleogeographic reconstruction.
"... The colonization of land plants during the Devonian is believed to have played a key role in regulating Earth's climate. The initially rapid expansion of seed plants into unvegetated or sparsely vegetated uplands is considered to have caused enhanced rock dissolution relative to clay formation on end-Devonian continents ..."

! Y.-L. Qiu et al. (2006): The deepest divergences in land plants inferred from phylogenomic evidence. In PDF, PNAS, 103: 15511-15516

Yin-Long Qiu and Jeffrey D. Palmer (1999): Phylogeny of early land plants: insights from genes and genomes. In PDF.
Now recovered from the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

J. Quirk et al. (2015): Constraining the role of early land plants in Palaeozoic weathering and global cooling. Proc. R. Soc., B 282.

! L. Ragnia and T. Greb (2018): Secondary growth as a determinant of plant shape and form. Open access, Seminars in Cell & Developmental Biology, 79: 58-67.

S. Ratti et al. (2011): Did Sulfate Availability Facilitate the Evolutionary Expansion of Chlorophyll a+c Phytoplankton in the Oceans? In PDF, Geobiology 9, no. 4: 301–312. See also here (abstract).

P.K. Raval et al. (2023): A molecular atlas of plastid and mitochondrial adaptations across the evolution from chlorophyte algae to angiosperms. Free access, bioRxiv, doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.09.01.555919.
"... Algae and plants carry two organelles of endosymbiotic origin that have been co-evolving in their host cells for more than a billion years. The biology of plastids and mitochondria can differ significantly across major lineages ..."

J.A. Raven (2017): Evolution and palaeophysiology of the vascular system and other means of long-distance transport. In PDF, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 373: 20160497.

J.A. Raven and M. Andrews (2010): Evolution of tree nutrition. In PDF, Tree Physiology, 30: 1050-1071. See also here.

J.A. Raven (2002): Selection pressures on stomatal evolution. PDF file, New Phytologist.

J.A. Raven and D. Edwards (2001): Roots: evolutionary origins and biogeochemical significance. PDF file, J. Exp. Bot., 52: 381-401.

R.R. Reisz and J. Müller (2004): Molecular timescales and the fossil record: a paleontological perspective. In PDF, Trends in Genetics.

S.S. Renner (2022): Plant Evolution and Systematics 1982–2022: Changing Questions and Methods as Seen by a Participant. In PDF, Progress in Botany.
See also here.
"... With DNA data came lab work, bioinformatics, and both the need and the possibility to collaborate, which brought systematists out of their niche, gave comparative biology a huge push, and resulted in a better integration of biodiversity studies within biology. ..."

K.S. Renzaglia et al. (2000): Vegetative and reproductive innovations of early land plants: implications for a unified phylogeny. Abstract, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond., B 355: 769-793.

H. Renault et al. (2017): A phenol-enriched cuticle is ancestral to lignin evolution in land plants. Nat. Commun. 8.

S.A. Rensing (2018): Great moments in evolution: the conquest of land by plants. Abstract, Current opinion in plant biology, 2018
"... Most probably, filamentous freshwater algae adapted to aerial conditions and eventually conquered land.
[...] In the past few years, the ever increasing availability of genomic and transcriptomic data of organisms representing the earliest common ancestors of the plant tree of life has much informed our understanding of the conquest of land by plants ..."

G.J. Retallack (2021): Great moments in plant evolution. In PDF, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), 118. See also here.

Authored by the The Rhynie Chert Research Group, University of Aberdeen, with contributions and support by the Palaeobotanical Research Group, University of Münster, Germany, the Centre for Palynology, University of Sheffield, The Natural History Museum, London, and The Royal Museum, National Museums of Scotland: The Biota of Early Terrestrial Ecosystems, The Rhynie Chert. A resource site for students and teachers covering many aspects of the present knowledge of this unique geological deposit (including a glossary and bibliography pages). The website´s second part provides guidance for teachers in this subject area and as such will require a password to enter (obtainable from the authors).

J.D. Richey et al. (2021): Modeled physiological mechanisms for observed changes in the late Paleozoic plant fossil record. Abstract, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 562.
"... (1) The existence of pCO2 and precipitation thresholds for loss of physiological viability that provide a mechanism for replacement of wet-adapted lycopsids and medullosans by marattialean tree ferns, which were tolerant of periodic drought, and the subsequent dominance of seasonally dry-adapted cordaitaleans and conifers. ...
(2) Under drier conditions, the combination of higher drought tolerance and primary productivity for marattialean tree ferns, conifers, and cordaitaleans provided an ecophysiological advantage over lycopsids and medullosans. ...
although the shift to more drought-tolerant plants in the Late Pennsylvanian and early Permian could have led to increased biomass and surface runoff, their ability to affect climate was likely limited by aridity and changes in vegetation density. ..."

! Mark Ridley (2004): Evolution (Third edition). In PDF. 786 pages, Blackwell Publishing company. See likewise here (Google books), or there.
Note especially:
Chapter 1.3, "A short history of evolutionary biology", Start at PDF-page 33.
! Part 5, Macroevolution. Chapter 18, "The History of Life", Start at PDF-page 558.
About plant evolution note:
Chapter 3, "The Evidence for Evolution", Start at PDF-page 43.
Chapter 14, "Speciation", Start at PDF-page 416.
Chapter 19, "Evolutionary Genomics", Start at PDF-page 591.

J.J. Ringelberg et al. (2023): Precipitation is the main axis of tropical plant phylogenetic turnover across space and time. Free access, Science Advances, 9.
"... 95% of speciation occurs within a precipitation niche, showing profound phylogenetic niche conservatism, and that lineage turnover boundaries coincide with isohyets of precipitation. We reveal similar patterns on different continents, implying that evolution and dispersal follow universal processes ..."

M.A. Romanova et al. (2023): All together now: Cellular and molecular aspects of leaf development in lycophytes, ferns, and seed plants. In PDF, Front. Ecol. Evol., 11: 1097115. doi: 10.3389/fevo.2023.1097115. See also here.
"... To understand leaf origin in sporophytes of land plants, we have combined the available molecular and structural data on development of leaves with different morphologies in different plant lineages ..."
Note figure 10: Phylogenetic tree for land plants and their structural and regulatory innovations.
Figure 11: Hypothesized scenario for the evolutionary emergence of leaves in lycophytes.

J.P. Rose et al. (2016): Shape analysis of moss (Bryophyta) sporophytes: Insights into land plant evolution. Free access, Am. J. Bot., 103: 652-662.

Anita Roth-Nebelsick et al. (2001): Evolution and Function of Leaf Venation Architecture: A Review. PDF file, Annals of Botany 87: 553-566. See also here.

G.W. Rothwell et al. (2018): Tree of death: The role of fossils in resolving the overall pattern of plant phylogeny. Free access, American Journal of Botany, 105: 1–4. See also here and there.

! G.W. Rothwell et al. (2014): Plant evolution at the interface of paleontology and developmental biology: An organism-centered paradigm. Open access, Am. J. Bot., 101: 899-913.

G.W. Rothwell et al. (2012): The seed cone Eathiestrobus gen. nov.: Fossil evidence for a Jurassic origin of Pinaceae. In PDF, American Journal of Botany, 99: 708–720.

G.W. Rothwell et al. (2009): Is the anthophyte hypothesis alive and well? New evidence from the reproductive structures of Bennettitales. Free access, American Journal of Botany, 96: 296-322. Note fig. 1: Cycadeoidea spp. Characteristic features of Cycadeoidea plants.
! Table 2. Contrasting characters of Bennettitales and Cycadales.

Gar W. Rothwell, Department of Environmental and Plant Biology, Ohio University, Athens, OH: Vascular Plant Morphology. Archived by Internet Archive Wayback Machine. This course covers the structure, development, reproductive biology and relationships of vascular plants. The course is structured to emphasize the evolutionary changes that led to the diversity of modern tracheophytes. Go to Cordaitales and Coniferales (PDF file).

Gar W. Rothwell, Department of Environmental and Plant Biology, Ohio University, Athens: Angiophytes: Using Whole Plant Concepts to Interpret Angiosperm Origins.
Selected Literature.
Links archived by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

Nick Rowe and Thomas Speck (2005): Plant growth forms: an ecological and evolutionary perspective. PDF file, New Phytologist, 166: 61-72. See also here.

Dmitry A. Ruban (2012): Mesozoic mass extinctions and angiosperm radiation: does the molecular clock tell something new? In PDF.

! C.V. Rubinstein and V. Vajda (2019): Baltica cradle of early land plants? Oldest record of trilete spores and diverse cryptospore assemblages; evidence from Ordovician successions of Sweden. Free access, GFF, DOI: 10.1080/11035897.2019.1636860.

! P.J. Rudall (2021): Evolution and patterning of the ovule in seed plants. Free access, Biological Reviews. See also here.

Paula J. Rudall and Richard M. Bateman (2010): Defining the limits of flowers: the challenge of distinguishing between the evolutionary products of simple versus compound strobili. In PDF, Philos. Trans. R. Soc. London, B Biol. Sci., 365: 397-409. See also here (abstract).

! B.R. Ruhfel et al. (2014): From algae to angiosperms - inferring the phylogeny of green plants (Viridiplantae) from 360 plastid genomes. In PDF, BMC Evolutionary Biology, 14. See also here.

Tyson Sacco, Cornell University: Trends in Green Plant Evolution. Powerpoint presentation.

! L. Sack and C. Scoffoni (2013): Leaf venation: structure, function, development, evolution, ecology and applications in the past, present and future. Free access, New Phytologist, 198: 983–1000.
Note figure 6: Evolution of terrestrial plants and their traits, including leaf vein traits against geological periods and time.

R.F. Sage (2004): The evolution of C₄ photosynthesis. Free access, New Phytologist, 161: 341–370.
"... C₄ photosynthesis in the dicots originated in arid regions of low latitude, implicating combined effects of heat, drought and/or salinity as important conditions promoting C₄ evolution. Low atmospheric CO₂ is a significant contributing factor ..."

! T. Salles et al. (2023): Landscape dynamics and the Phanerozoic diversification of the biosphere. Free access, Nature, 624: 115–121.
Note figure 1: Physiographic evolution and associated patterns of erosion–deposition across the Phanerozoic.
Figure 4: Continental sediment deposition and physiographic complexity, and diversity of vascular plants, during the Phanerozoic.
"... we couple climate and plate tectonics models to numerically reconstruct the evolution of the Earth’s landscape over the entire Phanerozoic eon, which we then compare to palaeodiversity datasets from marine animal and land plant genera. Our results indicate that biodiversity is strongly reliant on landscape dynamics
[...] On land, plant expansion was hampered by poor edaphic conditions until widespread endorheic basins resurfaced continents with a sedimentary cover that facilitated the development of soil-dependent rooted flora ..."

A. Salt (2019): When did the first flowers open? Botany One.

H.L. Sanders and S.E. Wyatt (2009): Leaf Evolution and Development: Advancing Technologies, Advancing Understanding. Free access, BioScience, 59: 17-26.

I. Sanmartín and F. Ronquist (2004): Southern Hemisphere Biogeography Inferred by Event-Based Models: Plant versus Animal Patterns. PDF file, Syst. Biol., 53: 216-243.

! P. Sarkar et al. (2009): Plant cell walls throughout evolution: towards a molecular understanding of their design principles. In PDF, Journal of Experimental Botany, 60: 3615–3635. See also here.

H. Sauquet et al. (2022): What is the age of flowering plants? In PDF, Journal of Experimental Botany, https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/erac130.
See also here.
Note fig. 1: Hypothetical time tree of the angiosperms.
Note fig. 2. Crown-group angiosperm age estimates obtained in fossil-calibrated molecular dating and palaeontological macroevolutionary modelling studies published over the last 6 years.

! H. Sauquet et al. (2017): The ancestral flower of angiosperms and its early diversification. Free acces, Nature Communications, 8.
Note figure 1: Three-dimensional model of the ancestral flower reconstructed.
"... We reconstruct the ancestral angiosperm flower as bisexual and radially symmetric, with more than two whorls of three separate perianth organs each (undifferentiated tepals), more than two whorls of three separate stamens each, and more than five spirally arranged separate carpels ..."
Also worth checking out:
! Was war die erste Blüte der Erdgeschichte? In German, by Ulf von Rauchhaupt, 2023, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

S. Schachat et al. (2023): Vegetational change during the Middle–Late Pennsylvanian transition in western Pangaea. Abstract, Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 535: 337-359.
"... Results indicate no substantive taxonomic turnover across the boundary. This stands in marked contrast to patterns in mid-Pangaean coal basins where there is a large wetland vegetational turnover.
[...] immediately following the boundary in New Mexico, and for approximately half of the Missourian Stage, floras previously dominated by hygromorphs become overwhelmingly dominated by mesomorphic/xeromorphic taxa ..."

C. Schirarend and R. Vogt, Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum Berlin-Dahlem, Freie Universität Berlin: Von Nacktpflanzen und Schuppenbäumen. Plant evolution in a nutshell (in German). Part of the description of the exhibition "Stammesgeschichte der Pflanzen" (in German).
These expired links are now available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

B.E. Schirrmeister et al. (2011): The origin of multicellularity in cyanobacteria. Open access, BMC Evolutionary Biology, 11.

H. Schneider, (2006), starting on PDF page 65: Plant morphology as the cornerstone to the integration of fossil and extant taxa in phylogenetic systematics. PDF file, in German. Species, Phylogeny and Evolution, 1. Themenheft Phylogenetisches Symposium Göttingen: Der Stellenwert der Morphologie in der heutigen Phylogenetische Systematik.
This expired link is available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

! H. Schneider et al. (2004): Ferns diversified in the shadow of angiosperms. In PDF, Nature, 428: 553–557. See also here (abstract).
! Note figure 1: Phylogenetic chronograms of ferns (a) and angiosperms (b), and proportional lineages-through-time (LTT) plots for angiosperms and polypods (c).
"... we report divergence time estimates for ferns and angiosperms based on molecular data, with constraints from a reassessment of the fossil record. We show that polypod ferns (>80% of living fern species) diversified in the Cretaceous, after angiosperms ..."

! J.W. Schopf et al. (2007): Evidence of Archean life: Stromatolites and microfossils. In PDF, Precambrian Research, 158: 141-155.
See also here.

! J.W. Schopf (2006): Fossil evidence of Archaean life. In PDF, Transactions of the Royal Society, B 361: 869–885.

! M. Schreiber et al. (2022): The greening ashore. Free access, Trends in Plant Science.
"... Two decisive endosymbiotic events, the emergence of eukaryotes followed by the further incorporation of a photosynthesizing cyanobacterium, laid the foundation for the development of plant life. ..."

! E. Schuettpelz and K.M. Pryer (2008): Fern phylogeny. In PDF.

ScienceDirect:
! Viridiplantae

SciQuest.com: Geology, Evolution upset: Oxygen-making microbes came last, not first.

D.H. Scott (1909), President of the Linnean Society: Darwin and Modern Science: The Palaeontological Record: Plants. Website hosted by "The Unofficial Stephen Jay Gould Archive".

M. Seale (2020): The Fat of the Land: Cuticle Formation in Terrestrial Plants. Free access, Plant Physiology, 184: 1622–1624.

! M.A. Selosse and C. Strullu-Derrien (2015): Origins of the terrestrial flora: A symbiosis with fungi? In PDF, BIO Web of Conferences, 4.

M.-A. Selosse et al. (2015): Plants, fungi and oomycetes: a 400-million year affair that shapes the biosphere. New Phytologist. 10th New Phytologist Workshop on the "Origin and evolution of plants and their interactions with fungi", London, UK, September 2014.

M.A. Selosse and C. Strullu-Derrien (2015): Origins of the terrestrial flora: A symbiosis with fungi? In PDF, BIO Web of Conferences, 4.

S. Sgorbati et al. (2018): Was Charles Darwin right in his explanation of the ‘abominable mystery’? Free access, Italian Botanist, 5: 25–30.

! A.J. Shaw et al.(2011): Bryophyte diversity and evolution: Windows into the early evolution of land plants. Free access, Am. J. Bot., 98: 352-369.

! D. Silvestro et al. (2020): Fossil data support a pre-Cretaceous origin of flowering plants. In PDF, Nature Ecology & Evolution. See also here.
"... Yet, our results indicate that an early, pre-Cretaceous origin of angiosperms is supported not only by molecular phylogenetic hypotheses but also by an analysis of the fossil record ..."

D. Silvestro et al. (2016): Fossil biogeography: a new model to infer dispersal, extinction and sampling from palaeontological data. In PDF, Phil. Trans. R. Soc., B, 371. See also here.

! D. Silvestro et al. (2015): Revisiting the origin and diversification of vascular plants through a comprehensive Bayesian analysis of the fossil record. In PDF, New Phytologist, 207: 425-436.

! M.G. Simpson (2010): Evolution and diversity of green and land plants. PDF file, p. 55–72. In: Simpson MG, (ed.): Plant systematics. 2nd ed., Cambridge (MA): Academic Press.

H.J. Sims (2012): The evolutionary diversification of seed size: using the past to understand the present. Open access, Evolution, 66: 1636–1649, https://doi.org/10.1111.
"... The fossil record indicates that the oldest seed plants had relatively small seeds, but the Mississippian seed size envelope increased significantly with the diversification of larger seeded lineages
[...] Quantitative measures of preservation suggest that, although our knowledge of Paleozoic seeds is far from complete, the evolutionary trend in seed size is unlikely to be an artifact of taphonomy ..."

Stephen A. Smith et al. (2010): An uncorrelated relaxed-clock analysis suggests an earlier origin for flowering plants. PDF file, PNAS, 107: 5897-5902. See also here, and there.

Stephen A. Smith and Jeremy M. Beaulieu (2009): Life history influences rates of climatic niche evolution in flowering plants. In PDF, Proc. R. Soc. B, 276: 4345-4352. See also here.

! S.A. Smith and M.J. Donoghue (2008): History in Flowering Plants Rates of Molecular Evolution Are Linked to Life. In PDF, Science, 322. See also here (abstract).

P.S. Soltis et al. (2019): Darwin review: angiosperm phylogeny and evolutionary radiations. In PDF, Proc. R. Soc. B, 286: 20190099. See also here.

D.E. Soltis et al. (2018): Using and navigating the plant tree of life. In PDF, American Journal of Botany, 105: 287–290. See also here.

! D.E. Soltis et al. (2009): Polyploidy and angiosperm diversification. Free access, Am. J. Bot., 96: 336-348.

Pamela Soltis (website by American Institute of Biological Sciences): Flowering Plants: Keys to Earth´s Evolution and Human Well-Being.
Still available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

P.S. Soltis and D.E. Soltis (2004): The origin and diversification of angiosperms. Free access, American Journal of Botany, 91: 1614-1626.

! D. Soltis et al., Florida Museum of Natural History (FLMNH), University of Florida: Deep Time. A comprehensive phylogenetic tree of living and fossil angiosperms.
Deep Time explore the ways in which angiosperm fossils can be appropriately integrated into the phylogenetic framework for extant taxa, with the ultimate goal of forming a comprehensive phylogenetic tree of living and fossil angiosperms. This includes the evaluation and prioritization of the fossil record, the critical appraisal of the age of fossils, the construction of a morphological data matrix for fossils and extant angiosperms, the integration of fossils into the angiosperm tree and the calibration of divergence times.

I. Sørensen et al. (2010): How Have Plant Cell Walls Evolved? Open access, Plant Physiology
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T. Speck and O. Speck (2019): Quo vadis plant biomechanics: Old wine in new bottles or an up-and-coming field of modern plant science? Open access, American Journal of Botany, 106: 1399-1403.

V. Spencer et al. (2020): What can lycophytes teach us about plant evolution and development? Modern perspectives on an ancient lineage. Open access, Evolution & Development, 23: 174-196 (Special Issue: Plant Evolution & Development).

! J.S. Sperry (2003): Evolution of water transport and xylem structure. PDF file, International Journal of Plant Sciences. See also here (abstract).

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See also here.

! R. Spicer and A. Groover (2010): Evolution of development of vascular cambia and secondary growth. Open access, New Phytologist, 186: 577-592.
Note figure 1: Orientation of cells and tissues within a woody stem.
Figure 2: A phylogeny of vascular plants illustrating multiple origins of secondary growth via a vascular cambium.

A.K. Srivastava, Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany, Lucknow, India: Taxonomy, palaeobotany and biodiversity About the angiosperm origin (PDF file, page 2). CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 81, NO. 10.

! P. Steemans et al. (2009): Origin and Radiation of the Earliest Vascular Land Plants. In PDF, Science, 324.
Now provided by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

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See also here.

W.E. Stein (1987): Phylogenetic analysis and fossil plants. PDF file, Review of palaeobotany and palynology.

Hans Steur, Ellecom, The Netherlands: Hans´ Paleobotany Pages. Plant life from the Silurian to the Cretaceous. Go to:
The evolution of plants. A concise report of the development of the flora.

! P.F. Stevens and Hilary Davis, Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis: Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. The focus of this site is on angiosperms and emphasis is placed on plant families. You can also navigate from the Orders- or the Families-website. Go to:
EVOLUTION OF LAND PLANTS.

R.A. Stockey et al. (2009): Introduction to the Darwin special issue: The abominable mystery. Free access, American Journal of Botany, 96: 3-4.

Ruth A. Stockey, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton: Paleobotany of Angiosperm Origins. Go to: Course Outline. Chiefly bibliographies and weblinks.

P.K. Strother (2023): An evo-devo perspective on no Ordovician land plants. In PDF, Estonian Journal of Earth Sciences,
Note figure 1: Fossil record of microfossils related to land plant origins seen as character distributions.

! P.K. Strother and C. Foster (2021): A fossil record of land plant origins from charophyte algae. Abstract, Science, 373: 792-796.
"... we describe a Tremadocian (Early Ordovician, about 480 Ma) assemblage with elements of both Cambrian and younger embryophyte spores that provides a new level of evolutionary continuity between embryophytes and their algal ancestors. This finding suggests that the molecular phylogenetic signal retains a latent evolutionary history of the acquisition of the embryophytic developmental genome, a history that perhaps began during Ediacaran-Cambrian time but was not completed until the mid-Silurian (about 430 Ma). ..."

P.K. Strother and C.H. Wellman (2021): The Nonesuch Formation Lagerstätte: a rare window into freshwater life one billion years ago. Open access, Journal of the Geological Society, 178.
"... Nonesuch microbiota, when viewed as a Lagerstätte, opens up a window onto the early evolution of unicellular eukaryotes, presenting an essential baseline of both eukaryotic diversity and cell structure well in advance of eukaryotic diversification documented in marine deposits from the later Neoproterozoic. ..."

P.K. Strother et al. (2021): A possible billion-year-old holozoan with differentiated multicellularity. Open access, Current Biology, 31: 2658-2665.e2

P.K. Strother et al. (2011): Earth´s earliest non-marine eukaryotes. In PDF, Nature 473: 505-509. See also here (abstract). See also the supplementary information (PDF, 5 MB).

Paul K. Strother, Palaeobotany Laboratory, Weston Observatory, Department of Geology & Geophysics, Boston College, Weston, Massachusetts: Links to Resources in Paleobotany, go to: Lectures, "Cryptospores and the Origin of Land Plants" (Powerpoint presentation).
Still available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

! C. Strullu-Derrien et al. (2018): The origin and evolution of mycorrhizal symbioses: from palaeomycology to phylogenomics. Free access, New Phytologist, 220: 1012–1030.
! Note figure 1: Geological timescale with oldest known fossils. Left: Antiquity of genomic traits related to mycorrhizal evolution based on molecular clock estimates. Right: Oldest known fossils.
Figure 5: Simplified phylogenetic tree showing the minimum stratigraphic ranges of selected groups based on fossils (thick bars) and their minimum implied range extensions (thin lines).

C. Strullu-Derrien et al. (2016): Origins of the mycorrhizal symbioses. PDF file, In: F Martin (ed.): Molecular Mycorrhizal Symbiosis, John Wiley & Sons.

C. Strullu-Derrien (2014): The earliest wood and its hydraulic properties documented in c. 407-million-year-old fossils using synchrotron microtomography. Abstract, Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 175: 423-437.

D. Su et al. (2022): Large-scale phylogenomic analyses reveal the monophyly of bryophytes and neoproterozoic origin of land plants Open access, Molecular Biology and Evolution, 38: 3332–3344.
! Note figure 1: The concatenation species tree of land plants and their algal relatives.
! Figure 2: The coalescent species tree of land plants and their algal relatives.
"... We found that studies favoring a Neoproterozoic origin of land plants (980–682 Ma) are informed more by molecular data whereas those favoring a Phanerozoic origin (518–500 Ma) are informed more by fossil constraints. Our divergence time analyses highlighted the important contribution of the molecular data (time-dependent molecular change) when faced with contentious fossil evidence.
[..] A careful integration of fossil and molecular evidence will revolutionize our understanding of how land plants evolved.

D. Su et al. (2021): Large-Scale Phylogenomic Analyses Reveal the Monophyly of Bryophytes and Neoproterozoic Origin of Land Plants. Free access, Molecular Biology and Evolution, 38: 3332–3344.
"... we estimate that land plants originated in the Precambrian (980–682 Ma), much older than widely recognized. Our study highlights the important contribution of molecular data when faced with contentious fossil evidence, and that fossil calibrations used in estimating the timescale of plant evolution require critical scrutiny. ..."

T. Su et al. (2022): Tracing the Evolution of Plant Diversity in Southwestern China. Open access, Diversity, 14. See also here.

M. Sundaram et al. (2019): Accumulation over evolutionary time as a major cause of biodiversity hotspots in conifers. In PDF, Proc. R. Soc. B, 286: 20191887. See also here.

M. Tanrattana et al. (2019): A new approach for modelling water transport in fossil plants. In PDF, IAWA Journal 40: 466–487.

D.W. Taylor and H. Li (2018): Paleobotany: Did flowering plants exist in the Jurassic period? eLife, 7: e43421.
"... we infer that Nanjinganthus shows substantial similarity to predicted models of ancestral characters and Early Cretaceous angiosperms, so the evidence suggests that it is a Jurassic flowering plant. ..."

! David W. Taylor and Leo J. Hickey (1996): Flowering Plant Origin, Evolution & Phylogeny. Google books (some pages omitted); American Institute of Biological Sciences (Springer), 404 pages.

! E.L. Taylor and T.N. Taylor (2009): Seed ferns from the late Paleozoic and Mesozoic: Any angiosperm ancestors lurking there? Open access, American Journal of Botany, 96: 237-251.
! "... In our opinion, it will be more productive to attempt to solve Darwin’s mystery if there were greater attention directed at mining the rock record in the hope of discovering more informative and new specimens, than to continue to construct new phylogenies using the same, often ambiguous characters. ..."
Worth checking out: Glossopterid vegetative and reproductive organs:
Note fig. 2: Suggested reconstruction of Ottokaria zeilleri.
Fig. 10: Suggested reconstruction of a Glossopteris megasporophyll with seeds attached to adaxial surface.
12: Diagrammatic reconstruction of Denkania indica.
Reproductive organs of Caytoniales and Corystospermales:
15. Suggested reconstruction of Caytonia cupule showing attachment of seeds and “stigmatic lip”.
16. Reconstruction of Caytonanthus arberi.
19. Suggested reconstruction of Umkomasia asiatica.
21. Diagrammatic reconstruction of Umkomasia uniramia.
Reproductive organs of Corystosperms and Petriellales:
25. Suggested reconstruction of Pilophorosperma geminatum.
28. Suggested reconstruction of Pteruchus fremouwensis.
30. Suggested reconstruction of Petriellaea triangulata.
32. Diagrammatic cutaway of Petriellaea triangulata cupule.
Reproductive organs of peltasperms:
34. Suggested reconstruction of Autunia conferta ovuliferous organ.
36. Suggested reconstruction of two Autunia conferta megasporophylls.
37. Suggested reconstruction of Peltaspermum rotula megasporophyll showing several ovules.
39. Suggested reconstruction of Peltaspermum thomasii axis bearing numerous megasporophylls.
40. Suggested reconstruction of Peltaspermopsis polyspermis.
41. Suggested reconstruction of Lepidopteris frond with pollen organs of the Antevsia-type at the tip.
42. Suggested reconstruction of Antevsia zeilleri pollen organ showing pinnate axis bearing clusters of pollen sacs.

! W. Testo and M. Sundue (2016): A 4000-species dataset provides new insight into the evolution of ferns. Abstract, Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 105: 200–211. See also here (in PDF).

Greg Thorn, Department of Biology, University of Western Ontario: Evolution of Plants (Powerpoint presentations). Navigate from here with information from the Syllabus. See e.g. Lecture 16: Evolution of Plants. The evolution of early angiosperms.

A.S. Thorpe et al. (2011): Interactions among plants and evolution. Free access, Journal of Ecology, 99: 729-740.

Bruce H. Tiffney (University of California, Santa Barbara), Access Excellance, BioForum 4, "Theoretical Issues in Plant Biology". BioForum is a series of lectures, presented by California Academy of Sciences, in which scientists share their research results with high school biology teachers. The Influence of Plants on the Evolution of Terrestrial Communities. "The Influence of Plants on the Evolution of Terrestrial Communities" is a tour de force through some 450 million years of plant evolution, giving you a feeling for the life forms based on sequential evidence of the fossil records and a consideration of the climates and major physical events that prevail.

! A.M.F. Tomescu (2021): Mysteries of the bryophyte–tracheophyte transition revealed: enter the eophytes. Free access, New Phytologist, Note fig. 1: Timeline and evolutionary hypothesis for early land plants. Worth checking out:
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! D. Edwards et al. 2022b): Earliest record of transfer cells in Lower Devonian plants. Free access, New Phytologist, 233: 1456–1465.

! A.M.F. Tomescu and G.W. Rothwell (2022): Fossils and Plant Evolution: Structural Fingerprints and Modularity in the Evo-Devo Paradigm. Free access, Evodevo, 13.
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Note fig. 8: The realization that a reproductive program can be activated in the intercalary meristem of individual equisetacean internodes.

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A.M.F. Tomescu (2016): Development: Paleobotany at the High Table of Evo-Devo. Free access, Current Biology, 26: R505-R508.

E. Trembath-Reichert et al. (2015): Four hundred million years of silica biomineralization in land plants. Free Access, Proc. National Academy of Sciences USA, 112: 5449–5454.

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A. Vasco et al. (2016): Challenging the paradigms of leaf evolution: Class III HD-Zips in ferns and lycophytes. In PDF, New Phytologist, 212: 745–758. See also here.

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B. Vento et al. (2023): Phylogenetic relationships in Nothofagus: The role of Antarctic fossil leaves. In PDF, Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, 68.

G.J. Vermeij (2017): How the land became the locus of major evolutionary innovations. In PDF, Current Biology; 27: 3178–3182. See also here.

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! Elizabeth Anne Viau, Charter College of Education, California State University, Los Angeles: World Builders, Session Eight, Terrestrial Botany, Plants on Land. Go to: Important Landmarks in the Evolution of Land Plants.

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R. Vidal-Russell and D.L. Nickrent (2008): The first mistletoes: Origins of aerial parasitism in Santalales. In PDF, Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 47: 523-537.
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School of Science and Engineering, University of Waikato, New Zealand: Evolution for Teaching. Earth's History and Evolution. Teaching resources. Go to: Plant Evolution, Prokaryotes, Algae and Plants.

! M.W. Wallace et al. (2017): Oxygenation history of the Neoproterozoic to early Phanerozoic and the rise of land plants. In PDF, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 466: 12–19. See also here.

D.-M. Wang et al. (2015): Leaf evolution in early-diverging ferns: insights from a new fern-like plant from the Late Devonian of China. Annals of Botany.

Q. Wang and K.-S. Mao (2015): Puzzling rocks and complicated clocks: how to optimize molecular dating approaches in historical phytogeography. In PDF, New Phytologist. 209: 1353-1358.
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X. Wang et al. (2018): Editorial: Evolution of Reproductive Organs in Land Plants. Open access, Front. Plant Sci., 9.

! X. Wang (2017): A Biased, Misleading Review on Early Angiosperms. In PDF, Natural Science, 9: 399-405.
Please note: P.S. Herendeen et al. (2017): Palaeobotanical redux: revisiting the age of the angiosperms. In PDF, Nature Plants 3. See also here.

X.Q. Wang and J.H. Ran (2014): Evolution and biogeography of gymnosperms. In PDF, Molecular phylogenetics and evolution. See also here.

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! C.H. Wellmann et al. (2023). Terrestrialization in the Ordovician. Open access, Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 532.
"... This contribution reviews the evidence for terrestrial organisms during the Ordovician (microbial, land plant, fungal, animal)
[...] We conclude that the Ordovician was a critical period during the terrestrialization of planet Earth that witnessed the transition from a microbial terrestrial biota to one dominated by a vegetation of the most basal land plants. ..."

! C.H. Wellman (2014): The nature and evolutionary relationships of the earliest land plants. Abstract, New Phytologist, 202: 1–3. See also here (in PDF).

C.H. Wellman et al. (2003): Fragments of the earliest land plants. In PDF, Nature, 425: 282–285.
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G.D.A. Werner et al. (2014): A single evolutionary innovation drives the deep evolution of symbiotic N₂-fixation in angiosperms. Open access, Nature Communications, 5: 4087.

Biology Department, Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington: Plant Evolution. Powerpoint presentation. See also here, or there.

C.D. Whitewoods and E. Coen (2017): Growth and development of three-dimensional plant form. Abstract, Current Biology.

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Niklas Wikström et al. (2001): Evolution of the angiosperms: calibrating the family tree. PDF file, Proc. R. Soc. Lond., B, 268: 2211-2220.

! Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
Plant evolution,
Evolutionary history of plants,
Timeline of plant evolution,
Paleobotany,
Plant evolutionary developmental biology.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
Category:Evolution of plants
! Timeline of plant evolution.
Evolutionary history of plants.

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! The Colonization of Land by Plants and Fungi. Lecture notes, Powerpoint presentation.
Websites outdated. Links lead to versions archived by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

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! P. Wilf and I.H. Escapa (2015): Green Web or megabiased clock? Plant fossils from Gondwanan Patagonia speak on evolutionary radiations. In PDF, New Phytologist, 207: 283-290.

D.M. Wilkinson and T.N. Sherratt (2016): Why is the world green? The interactions of top-down and bottom-up processes in terrestrial vegetation ecology. In PDF, Plant Ecology & Diversity, 9: 127-140. See also here.

K.J. Willis and K.J. Niklas (2004): The role of Quaternary environmental change in plant macroevolution: the exception or the rule? In PDF, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond., B 359: 159-172.

Kathy Willis and Jennifer McElwain (2014): The Evolution of Plants, Second Edition. Go to:
! Sample Material (in PDF). About the evolutionary record and methods of reconstruction.

Kathy Willis, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, & Jenny McElwain, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago (Oxford University Press): The Evolution of Plants. Book announcement. Snapshot taken by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine. Go to: PowerPoint illustrations. Illustrations from the book in PowerPoint format. See also:
! Biome maps. Downloadable full-color images from the book.

Kathy Willis, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, & Jenny McElwain, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago (Oxford University Press): The Evolution of Plants. Book announcement. Go to: Chapter 06, Flowering plant origins (PDF file).
Snapshots provided by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

R. Williams (2021): Discovered: Fossilized Spores Suggestive of Early Land Plants. The Scientist.

S. Williams (2017): The Weird Growth Strategy of Earth´s First Trees. The Scientist » News & Opinion » Daily News.
"Ancient fossils reveal how woodless trees got so big: by continuously ripping apart their xylem and knitting it back together".

Kathy Willis and Jennifer McElwain: The Evolution of Plants. Oxford University Press, Second Edition. Don't miss the
Companion Website
and some samples in Google books.
Note chapter 1: The evolutionary record and methods of reconstruction (in PDF).

! J.P. Wilson et al. (2023): Physiological selectivity and plant-environment feedbacks during Middle and Late Pennsylvanian plant community transitions. Free access, Geological Society, London, Special Publication, 535.

! J.P. Wilson et al. (2017): Dynamic Carboniferous tropical forests: new views of plant function and potential for physiological forcing of climate. In PDF, New Phytologist, 215: 1333–1353. See also here.
! Figure 2 shows the fungal evolution and abundance of coal basin sediments over the Phanerozoic.

! S.L. Wing and L.D. Boucher (1998): Ecological aspects of the Cretaceous flowering plant radiation. In PDF, Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 1998 26: 379-421.

! S.L. Wing et al. (1992): Mesozoic and early Cenozoic terrestrial ecosystems. In PDF. In: Behrensmeyer, A.K., Damuth, J.D., DiMichele, W.A., Potts, R., Sues, H., Wing, S.L. (eds): Terrestrial Ecosystems Through Time : Evolutionary Paleoecology of Terrestrial Plants and Animals. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp.327–416.

! S. Woudenberg et al. (2022): Deep origin and gradual evolution of transporting tissues: Perspectives from across the land plants. In PDF, Plant Physiology.
See also here. Note figure 4: Summary of the early fossil record of transporting tissues.

! Q. Wu et al. (2021): High-precision U-Pb age constraints on the Permian floral turnovers, paleoclimate change, and tectonics of the North China block. Free access, Geology. See also here.
"... The great loss of highly diverse and abundant Cathaysian floras and the widespread invasion of the Angaran floras under arid climate conditions in the North China block happened during the late Cisuralian to Guadalupian, but its exact timing is uncertain due to the long hiatus. ..."

X. Zhang et al. (2017): How the ovules get enclosed in magnoliaceous carpels. PLoS ONE, 12: e0174955.

S. Xiao and Q. Tang (2018): After the boring billion and before the freezing millions: evolutionary patterns and innovations in the Tonian Period. In PDF, Emerging Topics in Life Sciences, 2: 161–171. See also here,

C. Xiong et al. (2013): Diversity Dynamics of Silurian-Early Carboniferous Land Plants in South China. PLoS ONE, 8.

Y. Xu et al. (2023): How similar are the venation and cuticular characters of Glossopteris, Sagenopteris and Anthrophyopsis? In PDF, Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, 316.
See likewise here.
Note figure 1: Geologic ranges of some representative reticulate taxa.
"... Considering the putatively close relationship of glossopterids (Glossopteris), Caytoniales (Sagenopteris) and Bennettitales (here encompassing Anthrophyopsis) resolved as members of the ‘glossophyte’ clade in some past phylogenetic studies, cuticular features suggest that these groups are not closely related. In addition, anastomosing venation, superficially similar to that of Glossopteris, Sagenopteris and Anthrophyopsis appears to have arisen independently in numerous other plant groups ..."

H. Xu et al. (2022): The earliest vascular land plants from the Upper Ordovician of China. In PDF, ResearchSquare, DOI: https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-1672132/v1.
! Note fig. 4: Phylogeny and evolutionary timescale of early plant groups, with stratigraphic ranges of several key land-dwelling characters.

! H.-H. Xu et al. (2017): Unique growth strategy in the Earth´s first trees revealed in silicified fossil trunks from China. Abstract, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 114: 12009–12014. See also:
! D. Yuhas (2018): Ancient Tree Structure Is Like a Forest unto Itself. Arboreal fossils reveal an unusual and complex structure. Scientific American. See further:
Paläobotaniker lüften das Geheimnis der Urbäume (Spektrum.de, in German).

S. Yashina et al. (2012): Regeneration of whole fertile plants from 30,000-y-old fruit tissue buried in Siberian permafrost. In PDF, PNAS, 109: 4008-4013.
See also here.
"... This natural cryopreservation of plant tissue over many thousands of years demonstrates a role for permafrost as a depository for an ancient gene pool, ..."
Also worth checking out: Scientists revive a 30,000 year old Pleistocene-era plant (by Gareth Branwyn, October 7, 2022).

! H.S. Yoon et al. (2004): A molecular timeline for the origin of photosynthetic eukaryotes. PDF file, Mol. Biol. Evol., 21: 809-818. See also here.

W. Yuan et al. (2023): Mercury isotopes show vascular plants had colonized land extensively by the early Silurian. Free access, ScienceAdvances, 9; DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.ade9510.
Note figure 1: Conceptual model showing Hg cycling on Earth.
Figure 4: Critical records in Paleozoic sediments in stage/age level.
"... vascular plants were widely distributed on land during the Ordovician-Silurian transition (~444 million years), long before the earliest reported vascular plant fossil ..."

! A.E. Zanne et al. (2014): Three keys to the radiation of angiosperms into freezing environments. In PDF, Nature. Provided by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

N.E. Zavialova (2015): Evolutionary Transformations of Sporoderm Ultrastructure in Certain Monophyletic Lineages of Higher Plants. In PDF, Botanica Pacifica, 4.

! Z. Zhan et al. (2022): Origin and evolution of green plants in the light of key evolutionary events. Free access, Journal of Integrative Plant Biology, 64: 516–535.

L. Zhang et al. (2020): The water lily genome and the early evolution of flowering plants. Open access, Nature, 577: 79–84. Worth checking out:
Fig. 1d: Summary phylogeny and timescale of 115 plant species. Blue bars at nodes represent 95% credibility intervals of the estimated dates.