Paleobotany is the branch of plant sciences that investigates fossil plants and plant-related remains to reconstruct past floras, ecosystems, and environmental conditions through geological time. It integrates methods from stratigraphy, sedimentology, systematics, and morphology to analyze compression fossils, permineralizations, mummifications, palynomorphs, and phytoliths. Paleobotanists use comparative morphology and, where possible, phylogenetic frameworks to infer evolutionary relationships, diversification patterns, and major transitions in plant history, such as the origin of vascular tissues, seeds, and angiosperms. The discipline also provides quantitative and qualitative proxies for paleoclimate, paleoecology, and biogeographic reconstructions, informing models of Earth system evolution and long-term biosphere–geosphere interactions.
The tallest plants alive today can grow to over 100 meters tall. But they evolved from ancestors that were just a few centimeters high.
Evolution
Dec 18, 2025
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111
Around 56 million years ago, Earth suddenly got much hotter. Over about 5,000 years, the amount of carbon in the atmosphere drastically increased and global temperatures shot up by some 6°C.
Ecology
Dec 1, 2025
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55
Long before modern pharmaceuticals, our ancestors turned to plants to find cures for ailments from infections to parasites to fevers. A new study by Harvard researchers reveals the deep roots of that relationship: Several ...
Plants & Animals
Nov 24, 2025
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53
Researchers from the Natural History Museum and Sainsbury Laboratory, Cambridge University (SLCU) have identified a new species of ancient symbiotic fungus preserved within a 407-million-year-old plant fossil from Scotland. ...
Ecology
Nov 12, 2025
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46
Ancient trees may have played a key role in regulating Earth's climate during the last ice age—by 'breathing' less efficiently.
Earth Sciences
Nov 5, 2025
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84
Lichens were already widespread more than 410 million years ago, according to a new international study that identifies a fossil from Brazil as one of the oldest lichen in Earth's history.
Ecology
Oct 30, 2025
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147
A team of researchers at The University of New Mexico has uncovered how a peculiar, prehistoric plant might unlock new ways to reconstruct Earth's ancient climate.
Earth Sciences
Oct 29, 2025
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53
Hidden beneath farmland in the central tablelands of New South Wales lies one of Australia's most extraordinary fossil sites—McGraths Flat. It dates back between 11 million and 16 million years into the Miocene epoch, a time ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Oct 13, 2025
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86
An international research team led by the Department of Botany and Biodiversity Research at the University of Vienna has made an extraordinary discovery: fossilized lime blossoms and fossilized bumble bees were found in 24-million-year-old ...
Plants & Animals
Sep 22, 2025
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123
A research team led by Prof. Huang Diying from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGPAS) has identified three species of Jurassic orthopterans—an insect group that includes ...
Evolution
Sep 5, 2025
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