Paleobotany and the Evolution of Plants
Cambridge University Press
Edition: 2, 1/14/2010
EAN 9780521126083, ISBN10: 0521126088
Paperback, 536 pages, 25.4 x 17.8 x 3.1 cm
Language: English
Originally published in 1993, this second edition of a successful textbook describes and explains in a refreshingly clear way the origin and evolution of plants as revealed by the fossil record and summarises paleobotanical information relevant to our understanding of the relationships between the major plant groups, extant and extinct. As in the first edition, the text is profusely illustrated with line illustrations and half-tones. For those students with little knowledge of plant structure and morphology there is a brief resumé of those features of extant plants that will be needed to gain a better understanding of the fossil record. Summarising charts are also used to help students visualise the interpretative material.
Preface
Preface to First Edition
1. Introduction
2. Plant fossils
preservation, preparation and age determination
3. The fossil record
systematics, reconstruction and nomenclature
4. Life in the Precambian
5. Diversification of the Fungi
6. Diversification among the algae and related plants
7. How the land turned green
speculation
8. How the land turned green
Bryophyta
9. How the land turned green
vascular plants, primitive types
10. The evolution of microphylls and adaxial sporangia
11. The isoetalean clade
12. Paleoecology of the Pennsylvanian coal swamps
13. More diversity in the Devonian
Trimerophytopsida
14. The origin of the Sphenopsida
15. Unique and extinct
the Upper Paleozoic sphenophylls
16. The origin of the horsetails
17. Putative ferns of the Paleozoic
18. The emergence of the Marattiales and Ophioglossales
19. Filicales of the Carboniferous
20. The emergence of the modern Filicales, Salviniales and Marsileales
21. Free-sporing plants with gymnospermous secondary wood
22. Gymnosperm reproduction
early evolution
23. Paleozoic gymnosperms with fernlike leaves
24. Cycads
origins and relationships
25. The enigmatic cycadeoids
26. More innovation and diversification among gymnosperms
27. The record of a living fossil
Ginkgo
28. The first coniferophytes
29. The diversification of conifers and taxads
30. The origin and early evolution of angiosperms
31. Angiosperms
diversification, radiation, and modernisation
32. Major evolutionary events and trends
in retrospect
Index.