Blends evidence from the fossil record and data from biomolecular studies to tell the story of plant evolution from the earliest forms of life to the present day. Its straightforward explanations and clear illustrations provide the most accessible introduction to plant evolution available.

1. The evolutionary record and methods of reconstruction ; 2. Earliest forms of plant life ; 3. The colonization of land ; 4. The first forests ; 5. Major emergence of the seed plants ; 6. Flowering plant origins ; 7. The past 65 million years ; 8. Mass extinctions and persistent populations ; 9. Ancient DNA and the biomolecular record ; 10. Evolutionary theories and the plant fossil record

The most accessible and contemporary book on plant evolution available Brings together information from the plant fossil record with genotypic data from biomolecular studies to explore biological evolution in a coherent, unified way Considers plant evolution in the context of long-term environmental change, especially that brought about by climate change Covers the whole geological timescale, but focuses on periods when major evolutionary changes occurred Special biome maps illustrate the flora covering the Earth at different ages in the past, showing the trends in global plant distribution through time

Kathy Willis is Director of the Biodiversity Institute in the Zoology Department at the University of Oxford and a Professorial Fellow at Merton College. She gained her first degree in Geography and Environmental Science from the University of Southampton, and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in Plant Sciences. In her early postdoctoral career, Kathy held a Selwyn College Research Fellowship and then a NERC Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge. This was followed by a Royal Society University Research Fellowship in the Godwin Institute for Quaternary Research, University of Cambridge. Kathy moved to a University Lectureship in the School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford in 1999 where she established the Oxford Long-term Ecology Laboratory in 2002 and was made a Professor of Long-term Ecology in 2008. Jennifer C McElwain received her B.A. in Botany from Trinity College Dublin in 1993 and her PhD in Paleobotany in 1997 from Royal Holloway College, University of London. She was a Natural Environment Research Council Post Doctoral research associate between 1997 and 1998 and a Leverhulme Postdoctoral Fellow between 1998 and 2000. McElwain held the position of Assistant Curator of Paleobotany at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago between 2000 and 2003 and was Associate Curator of Paleobotany from 2003 until 2006, when she took up her current position as Lecturer in Plant Palaeobiology and Palaeoecology in the School of Biology and Environmental Science at University College Dublin. She is a Research Associate of the Field Museum and an Adjunct Associate Professor at Northwestern University, USA.

The most accessible and contemporary book on plant evolution available Brings together information from the plant fossil record with genotypic data from biomolecular studies to explore biological evolution in a coherent, unified way Considers plant evolution in the context of long-term environmental change, especially that brought about by climate change Covers the whole geological timescale, but focuses on periods when major evolutionary changes occurred Special biome maps illustrate the flora covering the Earth at different ages in the past, showing the trends in global plant distribution through time