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The term "plants" is taken here to mean the Archaeplastida, i.e. the glaucophytes, red and green algae and land plants. Alternation of generations occurs in almost all multicellular red and green algae, both freshwater forms (such as Cladophora) and seaweeds (such as Ulva). In most, the generations are homomorphic (isomorphic) and free-living.
Although annual plants die after one season, not all annual plants truly lack overlapping generations. Many annual plants have seed banks containing dormant seeds that remain dormant for at least one year. This makes overlapping generations possible in annual plants. [6] N.B domestication of annual plants has led to a reduction of seed dormancy.
Land plants evolved from a group of freshwater green algae, perhaps as early as 850 mya, [3] but algae-like plants might have evolved as early as 1 billion years ago. [2] The closest living relatives of land plants are the charophytes, specifically Charales; if modern Charales are similar to the distant ancestors they share with land plants, this means that the land plants evolved from a ...
Plant evolution is the subset of evolutionary phenomena that concern plants. Evolutionary phenomena are characteristics of populations that are described by averages , medians , distributions , and other statistical methods.
The idea of a tree of life arose from ancient notions of a ladder-like progression from lower into higher forms of life (such as in the Great Chain of Being).Early representations of "branching" phylogenetic trees include a "paleontological chart" showing the geological relationships among plants and animals in the book Elementary Geology, by Edward Hitchcock (first edition: 1840).
The identification of plant fossils in Cambrian strata is an uncertain area in the evolutionary history of plants because of the small and soft-bodied nature of these plants. It is also difficult in a fossil of this age to distinguish among various similar appearing groups with simple branching patterns, and not all of these groups are plants.
The detailed study of reproductive structures in plants led to the discovery of the alternation of generations, found in all plants and most algae, by the German botanist Wilhelm Hofmeister. This discovery is one of the most important made in all of plant morphology, since it provides a common basis for understanding the life cycle of all plants.
They are one of the oldest lineages of extant (living) vascular plants; the group contains extinct plants that have been dated from the Silurian (ca. 425 million years ago). [ 2 ] [ 3 ] Lycophytes were some of the dominating plant species of the Carboniferous period, and included the tree-like Lepidodendrales , some of which grew over 40 metres ...