The early history of vascular plants based on late Silurian and early Devonian floras of the British Isles

Abstract

Summary Vascular plant assemblages are described from late Silurian (Ludlow and Downtonian), Gedinnian, Siegenian, and Emsian localities in Britain. Various kinds of evidence are used in an attempt to reconstruct the habitats and life histories of early land plants. The later stages of the Caledonides in the British Isles coincided with one of the most important events in plant evolution—the appearance of vascular plants. As today the majority of such plants are terrestrial, it may be assumed that the macrofloras occurring in late Silurian and Early Devonian sediments of southern Britain and Scotland record episodes early in the colonisation of land surfaces. Plants of quite different affinities but which also possess anatomical modifications indicating tolerance of hostile drying sub-aerial conditions are sometimes present in the floras. These together with microfossils will be omitted from this account.