Earliest Evidence of Land Plants in Brazil

The miospore record suggests that land plants, also called embryophytes, first colonized the continental biotas during Early Ordovician times, some 480–470 million years ago. Unambiguously macrofossil evidence of plants is of mid-Silurian age, about 430 million years ago. Plants then rapidly evolved and diversified. As soon as in Late Silurian/earliest Devonian times, the number of genera dramatically increased. Most of our knowledge on those earliest land plants comes from the current Northern Hemisphere (China, Europe, USA), where paleobotanical investigations began during the nineteenth century. The early land plant record of the Southern Hemisphere has been less investigated. Recently, Brazil has become an exception. The extensive Early Devonian flora from the Paraná Basin is being today actively studied. It is exceptionally rich and various and includes some of the largest specimens of early land plants known to date. In this chapter, we put a special emphasis on this exceptional flora and describe and illustrate several exceptionally large or rare specimens of embryophytes. The paleogeographical implications of the Early Devonian taphofloras from the Paraná Basin are discussed.