Origin and Evolution
The origin of seed plants is a problem that still remains unsolved. However, more and more data tends to place this origin in the middle Devonian. The description in 2004 of the proto-seed Runcaria heinzelinii in the Givetian of Belgium is an indication of that ancient origin of seed-plants. As with modern ferns, most land plants before this time reproduced by sending spores into the air, that would land and become whole new plants.
The first "true" seeds are described from the upper Devonian, which is probably the theater of their true first evolutionary radiation. The seed plants progressively became one of the major elements of nearly all ecosystems.
Read more about this topic: Seed
Famous quotes containing the words origin and/or evolution:
“High treason, when it is resistance to tyranny here below, has its origin in, and is first committed by, the power that makes and forever re-creates man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“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)