The Evolution of Plants

By K.J. Willis and J.C. McElwain

A major new undergraduate textbook on plant evoutionThis is a broad but provocative examination of the evolution of plants from the earliest forms of life to the development of our present flora. Taking a fresh, modern approach to a subject often treated very stuffily, the book incorporates many recent studies on the morphological evolution of plants, enlivens the subject with current research on ancient DNA and other biomolecular markers, and places plant evolution in the context of climate change and mass extinction. It is written to be accessible to undergraduates, so, for example, geological time is discussed in terms of 'millions of years ago' as well as by the names of the ages, and English equivalents of plant names are prefered, e.g. seed plants (instead of gymnosperms), flowering plants (instead of angiosperms).? Links up the trends/patterns seen in the fossil flora from the earliest green algae through to the present day.? Covers the whole geological timescale, but focuses the chapters on periods when major evolutionary changes occurred. ? Special Biome Maps indicate the general trends in changing global plant distribution through time.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0198500653
• ISBN13: 9780198500650
• Release Date: March 2002
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 392 Pages
• Weight: 2.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.4" x 0.8" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Good work

A well explained evolution of plants linked with the major enviroment changes ocurred along Earth history. You end up learning alot of botanical concepts and undestanding the different evolutionary reasons which led to the diversity of extant plants. Very interesting.

a very good book

A very good book with several important information about history and evolution of plants. I really thank to the author, but I also sincerely suggest a review of the book, because there are some formatting minor errors.

Wonderfully written book.

This is from the my perspective as a basic research scientist and sometimes informal hiker and naturalist who never took zoology or botany too seriously, but on a whim wanted to know more about plant evolution. This is a wonderful book. It is engagingly written, and more importantly isn't a litany of facts, but rather discusses the topic in the context of biomes, geology, and the evolutionary solutions reached by plants. One small modification would be useful. Although the book is remarkably jargon free a few more terms in the glossary would have been useful to the non specialist. This said, as a non-specialist I read this book cover to cover and highly enjoyed it.

Fossil plants

This is a user friendly sized book reviewing the evolution of plants. The oldest plants are found in rocks 3,500 million years old, the stromatolites and prokaryotes. From that beginning the book describes the evolution of the mosses and ferns, and the living trees with the longest geologic history: Cycads, and Ginkgos. The rest of the book describes the evolution of Gymnosperms and Angiosperms and flowering plants. Well written and comprehensive, but not encyclopedic. I enjoyed reading and refering to it.