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    How the Earth Turned Green: A Brief 3.8-Billion-Year History of Plants
    Unavailable
    How the Earth Turned Green: A Brief 3.8-Billion-Year History of Plants
    Unavailable
    How the Earth Turned Green: A Brief 3.8-Billion-Year History of Plants
    Ebook884 pages19 hours

    How the Earth Turned Green: A Brief 3.8-Billion-Year History of Plants

    By Joseph E. Armstrong

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    On this blue planet, long before pterodactyls took to the skies and tyrannosaurs prowled the continents, tiny green organisms populated the ancient oceans. Fossil and phylogenetic evidence suggests that chlorophyll, the green pigment responsible for coloring these organisms, has been in existence for some 85% of Earth’s long history—that is, for roughly 3.5 billion years. In How the Earth Turned Green, Joseph E. Armstrong traces the history of these verdant organisms, which many would call plants, from their ancient beginnings to the diversity of green life that inhabits the Earth today.

    Using an evolutionary framework, How the Earth Turned Green addresses questions such as: Should all green organisms be considered plants? Why do these organisms look the way they do? How are they related to one another and to other chlorophyll-free organisms? How do they reproduce? How have they changed and diversified over time? And how has the presence of green organisms changed the Earth’s ecosystems? More engaging than a traditional textbook and displaying an astonishing breadth, How the Earth Turned Green will both delight and enlighten embryonic botanists and any student interested in the evolutionary history of plants.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press
    Release dateOct 2, 2014
    ISBN9780226069807
    Unavailable
    How the Earth Turned Green: A Brief 3.8-Billion-Year History of Plants

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    Reviews for How the Earth Turned Green

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    • 4/5
      Engaging and humorous "brief" history that backstops a whole lot of science at a time when paleobiology, molecular clockwork and fossil record realignment are shaking the tree of life from base to top. Armstrong is a dedicated, life-long botanist who has thoroughly prepared much material and enlightenment for the non-botanist. But it's still quite a workout with lots of highlighting and go-fetch in chapter-sized bites. A bigger glossary yet and/or some direction to online resources would help persons with college-level biology shortfalls who want to challenge themselves to a bit more (or much more) learning. At stake is one's essential self-interest, courtesy of immersion in a green world. Wonderful first edition! and timely book.