Paleobotany and Evolution of Seed Plants

Paleobotany investigates the fossil record of plants to reconstruct the origin, diversification and ecological roles of seed‐bearing lineages through deep time. Seed plants first emerged in the late Paleozoic, developing protective integuments around ovules and nutrient-rich megagametophytes that conferred a key adaptive advantage over spore-releasing relatives. Early gymnosperm lineages—including pteridosperms (seed ferns), cordaitaleans and early conifers—diversified throughout the Permian and Triassic, occupying varied terrestrial habitats from swampy coasts to upland forests. By the Jurassic, cycads, bennettitaleans and ginkgoales formed prominent elements of many floras, exhibiting a range of reproductive architectures such as cupules and compound cones. The Cretaceous saw the explosive radiation of angiosperms, whose enclosed carpels and novel vascular patterns in leaves facilitated rapid ecological expansion and eventually global dominance. Modern gymnosperms persist in refugial ecosystems, offering living windows onto ancient morphological experiments. Across these epochs, palaeobotanical studies integrate megafossil morphology, cuticular anatomy and dispersed pollen/spore assemblages to infer palaeoecology, climate change and plant–insect interactions. This evolutionary narrative not only illuminates the assembly of Earth’s modern flora but also underpins models of carbon cycling, informs conservation priorities for relict gymnosperm clades and guides biomimetic applications in materials science.

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Paleobotany and Evolution of Seed Plants publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in paleobotany and evolution of seed plants across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Gymnosperm: Seed plant whose ovules are exposed at pollination, not enclosed in a carpel.

Angiosperm: Flowering plant producing seeds within a protective carpel; characterised by enclosed ovules and specialised reproductive organs.

Pteridosperm: Informal term for extinct seed ferns, early gymnosperms with fern-like foliage and seed-bearing structures.

Venation: Arrangement of veins in a leaf, influencing nutrient transport, mechanical support and water relations.

Cupule: Protective, often cup-shaped structure enclosing one or more ovules or seeds in certain gymnosperms.

Micropyle: Aperture in the integument of a seed through which pollen reaches the ovule for fertilisation.

References

1. Parallel evolution of angiosperm‐like venation in Peltaspermales: a reinvestigation of Furcula. New Phytologist (2024).
2. Bennettitalean Leaves From the Permian of Equatorial Pangea—The Early Radiation of an Iconic Mesozoic Gymnosperm Group. Frontiers in Earth Science (2021).
3. A novel cupulate seed plant, Xadzigacalix quatsinoensis gen. et sp. nov., provides new insight into the Mesozoic radiation of gymnosperms. American Journal of Botany (2022).