1. Announcements Finish up your data collection and organization for the Urban Forestry project. I will be posting more reading Thursday. I will try and get your writing assignments back to you on Thursday.

2. Plant diversity Continuing with Chapter 7 and into Chapter 8. Early evolution of seed plants.

3. Ordovician and Silurian are the periods with evidence for the earliest land plants. Carboniferous was a period of vast 'silent' forests of lycophytes. Early seed plants through the Mesozoic. Most evidence had suggested previously that flowering plants had evolved towards the end of the Cretaceous. More recent findings suggest flowering plants probably go back in time to the Jurassic.

5. Figure 7.5 Morphology of basal embryophytes

6. Figure 7.6 Phylogenetic relationships at base of embryophytes

7. Figure 7.8 Phylogeny of tracheophytes (vascular plants)

11. Figure 7.11 Archaeopteris and early seed plants

12. Archaefructis – new flowering plant discovered in China recently. Dates from early Cretaceous.

13. Lobospermum – charcoalified seeds and flowers from early Cretaceous and even into the Jurassic.

14. Evolution of plant diversity The difficulty of placing fossils on phylogenetic trees. How do you know the fossil is actually on the 'stem'? The fossil simply indicates the latest possible date or minimum estimate of the age of a group.

15. Gymnosperms (Fig. 7.12) Cycadales – cycads Gingkoales – 1 family, 1 species – Gingko biloba Coniferales – five families Gnetales – 3 very distinct families

19. Figure 8.20 Cycadaceae. Cycas circinalis Swimming sperm

20. Figure 8.21 Zamiaceae. Zamia floridana

21. Figure 8.22 Ginkgoaceae. Broad leaf of Ginkgo biloba

22. Figure 8.23 Relationships among major groups of conifers, with potential synapomorphies for the 5 families covered.

23. Figure 8.24 Pinaceae. Pinus subgen. Strobus, P. strobus

24. Figure 8.25 Cupressaceae

25. Figure 8.26 Araucariaceae

26. Figure 8.27 Taxaceae. Taxus floridana

27. Figure 8.28 Ephedraceae. Ephedra distachya

33. Welwitschia