The Fruitiness of August. The Silurian Vascular land plants

Land colonization by vascular plants was under way during most of the Silurian Period, although activity clearly was restricted to coastal lowlands—the remainder of the land being essentially barren. These plants were small (about 6 cm, or 2.4 inches, in height), with smooth, simply branched stems bearing spore sacs at their tips. Photosynthesis took place entirely within the leafless stems. Plant megafossils preserved as coalified impressions are fragmentary. Their known distribution includes most of the Silurian continents with limited representation on Laurentia (New York and northern Greenland), Baltica (Avalonian Wales and England, as well as Podolia in what is now southwestern Ukraine), the Siberian corner of Sinkiang (northwestern China), and some Australian and North African sectors of Gondwana (Victoria and Libya, respectively). Latitudinal distribution apparently ranged from about 45° N (Siberia) to 30° S (Libya). Species belonging to the genus Cooksonia were among the first and most successful vascular land plants found in all the above-cited areas except for northern Greenland and Australia. A distinctly endemic group is represented by the genus Baragwanathia during Ludlow times in Victoria, Austl.