Darwin    Evolution

Hans' Paleobotany Pages

Taxodium at Ellecom (NL): a living fossil.

This website is dedicated to fossil plants. The first indications for the existence of land plants date from 470 million years ago, from the Ordovician. The oldest fossils of land plants visible with the naked eye are about 425 million years old, from the Middle Silurian. From this time on the plants spread over the land and the continents turned to green. This was the beginning of an amazing development, which created the terms for animal life on land. On the basis of mainly self-found fossils a view is given of plant life in the Silurian, the Devonian, the Carboniferous and the Permian. Enjoy the beauty and the multitude of forms of long vanished plants! Small animals, living between the plants, are also considered. And now a little bit Mesozoic and Tertiary!

CONTENTS

Petrified 'wood' Prototaxites Calamites Psaronius Conifer wood Tempskya Palm wood Hardwood

Animals In the Rhynie chert Devonian myriapods Scorpion from the Piesberg Carboniferous animals

Hans Steur, Ellecom, The Netherlands

September 20, 2022