Evolution
The earliest conifers in the fossil record date to the late Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) period (about 300 million years ago), possibly arising from Cordaites, a seed-bearing plant with cone-like fertile structures. This plant resembled the modern Araucaria. Pinophyta, Cycadophyta, and Ginkgophyta all developed at this time. An important adaptation of these gymnosperms was allowing plants to live without being so dependent on water. Other adaptations are pollen (allowing fertilization to occur without water) and the seed, which allows the embryo to be transported and developed elsewhere.
Conifers appear to be one of the taxa that benefitted from the Permian–Triassic extinction event.
Read more about this topic: Pinophyta
Famous quotes containing the word evolution:
“Like Freud, Jung believes that the human mind contains archaic remnants, residues of the long history and evolution of mankind. In the unconscious, primordial “universally human images” lie dormant. Those primordial images are the most ancient, universal and “deep” thoughts of mankind. Since they embody feelings as much as thought, they are properly “thought feelings.” Where Freud postulates a mass psyche, Jung postulates a collective psyche.”
—Patrick Mullahy (b. 1912)
“By contrast with history, evolution is an unconscious process. Another, and perhaps a better way of putting it would be to say that evolution is a natural process, history a human one.... Insofar as we treat man as a part of nature—for instance in a biological survey of evolution—we are precisely not treating him as a historical being. As a historically developing being, he is set over against nature, both as a knower and as a doer.”
—Owen Barfield (b. 1898)