The evolutionary emergence of land plant body plans transformed the planet. However, our
understanding of this formative episode is mired in the uncertainty associated with the …

There can be no doubt that early land plant evolution transformed the planet but, until
recently, how and when this was achieved was unclear. Coincidence in the first appearance …

The origin of plants and their colonization of land fundamentally transformed the terrestrial
environment. Here we elucidate the basis of this formative episode in Earth history through …

Phylogenetic relationships among the four major lineages of land plants (liverworts, mosses,
hornworts, and vascular plants) remain vigorously contested; their resolution is essential to …

Plants are the primary producers of the terrestrial ecosystems that dominate much of the
natural environment. Occurring approximately 480 Ma (Sanderson 2003; Kenrick et al …

Premise Phylogenetic trees of bryophytes provide important evolutionary context for land
plants. However, published inferences of overall embryophyte relationships vary …

A widely held view of land plant relationships places liverworts as the first branch of the land
plant tree, whereas some molecular analyses and a cladistic study of morphological …

Background Molecular phylogeny has resolved the liverworts as the earliest-divergent clade
of land plants and mosses as the sister group to hornworts plus tracheophytes, with …

The bryophytes comprise three phyla of embryophytes that are well established to occupy
the first nodes among extant lineages in the land‐plant tree of life. The three bryophyte …

The “bryophytes” comprise three phyla of plants united by a similar haploid‐dominant life
cycle and unbranched sporophytes bearing one sporangium: the liverworts …