Fossil spores may move the origin of crown land plants
WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS
New ancestral character reconstructions interpret some trilete spores as features of ancient land plants more broadly, rather than uniquely vascular plants. With revised fossil calibration, crown embryophytes are estimated at 457–450 million years ago.
WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ
Even a major ecological transition is dated through contested assumptions about what fossil structures identify.
CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY
Divergence dates depend on fossil calibrations, phylogenies and ancestral-state models, not an observed first plant fossil.
SOURCE
Nature Plants — Hooper et al. (2026)
View original evidence ↗
Reconstructed spore traits suggest a Late Ordovician crown-embryophyte origin.
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