Video narration
Did algae turn into mosses, then ferns, then cone-bearing and flowering plants? That order looks like a ladder. A family tree is better: branches split from shared ancestors, while each keeps evolving. Land plants arose from green algal relatives. Early land-plant branches included bryophytes-non-vascular plants such as mosses. On another branch, vascular tissue carried water through the plant; the traditional name pteridophytes covers seedless vascular plants such as ferns. Later, seed plants branched out: gymnosperms, whose seeds are not enclosed in fruit, and angiosperms, flowering plants with seeds enclosed in fruit. Those traits appeared along branches; mosses didn't turn into ferns, and ferns didn't turn into today's seed plants. Think of the family tree as a map of shared ancestry, not a staircase of living groups. No. They're branches from shared ancestors-not a relay where modern algae became mosses, then ferns, then flowering plants.