evolution of land plants 🌳

• Plants first appeared during the Cambrian period. Liverworts and mosses are the most primitive living plants today. They would have formed layers over the surfaces of wet soils. Early plants had shallow root systems. 
• Mosses colonised the new volcanic island of surtsey very rapidly because they can live in harsh climates. 
• During the Silurian coprolites from millipedes contained the remains of plants, meaning the first herbivores had evolved. 
• By the Devonian, some plants had acquired large trunks to form forests. Plants also evolved seeds to reproduce because seeds can survive drought, so plants could colonise dry areas. 
• During the carboniferous the first tropical rainforests developed, they created thick layers of coal. These forests were lived in by lots of organisms.