So now that we’ve sprinted through approximately 480 million years of evolution, going from Charophyte algae to bryophyte moss to primitive vascular Cooksonia to the first forests it’s time stop, breathe, and look around at the plants in our lives.
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Botany and Arborism
As the Ordovician period progressed the environment changed. Atmospheric CO2 plummeted from 7000 to 4400 ppm and the Earth cools. This may have been partially caused by green, aquatic algae and land plants as they sucked and sequestered atmospheric CO2.
Last week, I introduced the concept that green algae (but not their brown, red and gold counterparts) are actually plants that outnumber the leafy things we're all familiar with. You were probably left wondering how one gets from Ulva and Volvox to a redwood. As it turns out differences between land plants and green algae have everything to do with the different environmental challenges they face.