© 2015 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.   The file attached is the published version of the article

Burgess ND

Church AH

Dianne Edwards

Edwards D

Fanning U

Kenrick P

Kräusel R

Paul Kenrick

Steemans P

Wellman CH

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences

English

PubMed


            During the 1920s, the botanist W. H. Lang set out to collect and investigate some very unpromising fossils of uncertain affinity, which predated the known geological record of life on land. His discoveries led to a landmark publication in 1937, ‘On the plant-remains from the Downtonian of England and Wales’, in which he revealed a diversity of small fossil organisms of great simplicity that shed light on the nature of the earliest known land plants. These and subsequent discoveries have taken on new relevance as botanists seek to understand the plant genome and the early evolution of fundamental organ systems. Also, our developing knowledge of the composition of early land-based ecosystems and the interactions among their various components is contributing to our understanding of how life on land affects key Earth Systems (e.g. carbon cycle). The emerging paradigm is one of early life on land dominated by microbes, small bryophyte-like organisms and lichens. Collectively called cryptogamic covers, these are comparable with those that dominate certain ecosystems today. This commentary was written to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the journal
            Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
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The early evolution of land plants, from fossils to genomics: a commentary on Lang (1937) ‘On the plant-remains from the Downtonian of England and Wales'

Edwards, D

Kenrick, P

Natural History Museum Repository

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Virtual taphonomy using synchrotron tomographic microscopy reveals cryptic features and internal structure of modern and fossil plants.

Walkabout on the long branches of plant evolution.

Xylem in early tracheophytes.

During the 1920s, the botanist W. H. Lang set out to collect and investigate some very unpromising fossils of uncertain affinity, which predated the known geological record of life on land. His discoveries led to a landmark publication in 1937, ‘On the plant-remains from the Downtonian of England and Wales’, in which he revealed a diversity of small fossil organisms of great simplicity that shed light on the nature of the earliest known land plants. These and subsequent discoveries have taken on new relevance as botanists seek to understand the plant genome and the early evolution of fundamental organ systems. Also, our developing knowledge of the composition of early land-based ecosystems and the interactions among their various components is contributing to our understanding of how life on land affects key Earth Systems (e.g. carbon cycle). The emerging paradigm is one of early life on land dominated by microbes, small bryophyte-like organisms and lichens. Collectively called cryptogamic covers, these are comparable with those that dominate certain ecosystems today. This commentary was written to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society

Edwards, Dianne

Kenrick, Paul

Online Research @ Cardiff

The early evolution of land plants, from fossils to genomics: a commentary on Lang (1937) 'On the plant-remains from the Downtonian of England and Wales'

http://orca.cf.ac.uk/71365/1/20140343.full.pdf

The early evolution of land plants, from fossils to genomics: a commentary on Lang (1937) ‘On the plant-remains from the Downtonian of England and Wales'

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Online Research @ Cardiff