Paleobotany: some aspects of non-flowering and flowering plant evolution

When an examination of some aspects of the evolution of vascular land plant s is made across broad sweeps of Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Tertiary time, thr ee basic patterns occur in unrelated groups in vascular land plant evolutio n: independent evolution of similar morphologies, nearly contemporaneous ev olution of similar structures and strategies, and repeated evolution of sim ilar features or strategies at different times. Examples are given in non-f lowering plants and also in the evolution of angiosperms. A database is pre sented to illustrate the presence of angiosperms in the Jurassic/Lower Cret aceous fossil record and the diversity and abundance of organs recovered fr om these early angiosperms. These data are presented as working documents w ith the anticipation that they may grow into a major database for intereste d scholars world-wide.