Home / Introductions to both Fossil and Recent Plant Taxa

Home / Introductions to both Fossil and Recent Plant Taxa / General

Alexa (Alexa Internet, Inc., an Amazon.com Company). Alexa is a Web Information Company, perhaps best known for the Alexa Rank, the website ranking system which tracks over 30 million websites worldwide. See especially: The top ranked sites in category "Science". Go to:
! Botany.

! A. Antonelli et al. (2023): Vascular plant description over time and space. Free access, New Phytologist, 240: 1327-1702.
Note figure 2: Vascular plant description over time and space.
Figure 3: Global distribution and diversity of vascular plants.

! APG IV (2016): An update of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group classification for the orders and families of flowering plants: APG IV. Open access, Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 181: 1–20.

! The L. H. Bailey Hortorium Herbarium (BH).
BH at Cornell University is one of the largest university-affiliated collections of preserved plant material in North America. It includes Cornell's Wiegand Herbarium (CU), which was merged with BH in 1977. The combined herbaria now number ca. 860,000 specimens of algae, bryophytes, and vascular plants.

N.G. Beckman and L.L. Sullivan (2023): The Causes and Consequences of Seed Dispersal. Free access, Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 54: 403-427.
"... Seed dispersal, or the movement of diaspores away from the parent location, is a multiscale, multipartner process that depends on the interaction of plant life history with vector movement and the environment
[...] We provide an overview of the ultimate causes of dispersal and the consequences of this important process for plant population and community dynamics ..."

! Debashish Bhattachatya et al. (2009): Eukaryotes (Eukaryota). PDF file, In: S.B. Hedges and S. Kumar (eds.): The Timetree of Life (see here).

Botanicus Digital Library.
Botanicus is a freely accessible, Web-based encyclopedia of digitized historic botanical literature from the Missouri Botanical Garden Library.

Jamie Boyer, The New York Botanical Garden: Welcome to the Botanical Education site. Here you find information on courses and blogs created by Jamie Boyer, e.g.
! Plant Diversity. About the diversity, morphologies, life histories, and evolution of plants, as well as information about bacteria, archaea, fungi, and algae/protists.

Encyclopaedia Britannica:
Plant.
Evolution and paleobotany.

P.D. Cantino et al. (2007): Towards a phylogenetic nomenclature of Tracheophyta. PDF file, Taxon, 56: 822-846. See also here.

! F.M. Cardillo & T.S. Samuels, Department of Biology, Manhattan College and the College of Mt. St. Vincent: WHITTAKER FIVE KINGDOM SYSTEM (1978) Plant Classification. Website archived by Internet Archive Wayback Machine. Chapters include: KINGDOM IV - Plantae.

Sean Carrington, Department of Biological and Chemical Sciences, University of the West Indies, Barbados: THE PLANT KINGDOM. An introduction to the world of plants from an evolutionary perspective.
Still available via Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

! Catalogue of Life (by Species 2000, Leiden The Netherlands).
The most complete authoritative list of the world's species - maintained by hundreds of global taxonomists.
Go to: Kingdom Plantae.

! The Cornell University Plant Anatomy Collection (CUPAC).
CUPAC is an historically important collection of anatomical slide preparations of a wide array of plant parts. Slides are being imaged by volunteers and undergraduate student workers, and simultaneously barcoded and databased. Post-processing involves automated resizing and labeling as well as magnification calibration that allows online measurement tools to be used as overlays on the images. Superbly done!

Davesgarden.com (gardening forums, seed trading): Plant Files. A plant database with more than 150,000 plants.

M.J. Dallwitz Australia (DELTA – DEscription Language for TAxonomy).
Descriptions, illustrations, interactive identification, and information retrieval from DELTA databases.

! P.M. Delaux et al. (2019): Reconstructing trait evolution in plant evo–devo studies. Free access, Current Biology, 29: R1110-R1118.
"... we summarize a subset of the different aspects of plant evolutionary biology, provide a guide for structuring comparative biology approaches and discuss the pitfalls that (plant) researchers should avoid when embarking on such studies ..."

Douglas J. Eernisse, Department of Biological Science, Cal State Fullerton: Web Links by Group of Organisms. Provided by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

! M.J. Farabee, Estrella Mountain Community College Center, Avondale, Arizona: On-Line Biology Book. Introductory biology lecture notes. Go to:
BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY: NONVASCULAR PLANTS AND NONSEED VASCULAR PLANTS, and
BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY: SEED PLANTS.

J.C. Ghildiyal (ed.; 2019):
Pteridology, Gymnosperms and Palaeobotany. Lecture notes, in PDF, Uttarakhand Open University, India.
With many black and white illustrations.
Palaeobotany part starts on PDF page 254.

Die Globale Taxonomie Initiative GTI, Nationale Kontaktstelle Deutschland (part of the Convention on Biological Diversity, CBD, hosted by Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart). The objectives of the GTI are the provision of sufficient taxonomic capacities to fullfill the aims of the CBD, i.e. the protection and sustainable use of the components of biodiversity. See especially: Why does the world need taxonomy?
See also: Identification helps and keys for Animals, Plants and Fungi from all regions.
Snapshot taken by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

Mikko Haaramo, Helsinki (website was formerly situated on the Finnish Museum of the Natural History server): Mikko's Phylogeny Archive. An archive of various phylogenetic trees. Go to: Viridiplantae - Green Plants (after Parker, 1982, and McCourt, Chapman, Buchheim & Mishler, 1996-1998, "The Tree of Life").

C Michael Hogan, Encyclopedia of Earth: What is a Plant?

M. Hrabovský (2021): Leaf evolution and classification. 3. Gymnospermopsida. In PDF, Acta Botanica Universitatis Comenianae, 57.
! Many black and white contour drawings.

M. Hrabovský (2020): Leaf evolution and classification. 2. Polypodiopsida. In PDF, Acta Botanica Universitatis Comenianae, 56.
! Many black and white contour drawings.

M. Hrabovský (2020): Leaf evolution and classification. 1. Lycopodiopsida. In PDF, Acta Botanica Universitatis Comenianae, 55.
See also here.
! Many black and white contour drawings.

! The Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS).
ITIS is the authoritative taxonomic information on plants, animals, fungi, and microbes of North America and the world.

International Association for Plant Taxonomy (IAPT).
IAPT is dedicated to organismal biodiversity the extent, recognition, organization, evolution, and naming of plants and fungi, both living and fossil. Go to:
! International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (Shenzhen Code, 2018).

International Organization for Plant Information (IOPI): IOPI manages a series of cooperative international projects that aim to create databases of plant taxonomic information. The Global Plant Checklist Project. A Global Plant Checklist, encompassing about 300,000 vascular plant species and over 1,000,000 names, is IOPI's first priority. Eventually, the Checklist will also include non-vascular plants (mosses and liverworts, and even lichens and if they have not been dealt with elsewhere). A provisional Checklist is in operation.

International Organization for Plant Information (IOPI): IOPI manages a series of cooperative international projects that aim to create databases of plant taxonomic information. The Species Plantarum Project (SPP). Website archived by Internet Archive Wayback Machine. SPP is a long term project to record essential taxonomic information on vascular plants worldwide. It is being published in hardcopy as "Flora of the World". It includes accepted names and synonyms with places of publication and types, short descriptions of all taxa from family to infraspecific rank, keys, distributions, references to literature comments, etc.

Iziko Museums of Cape Town: The Kingdom of Plants (Embryophyta). Website archived by Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

Keith Karoly, Biology Department, Reed College, Portland, OR: Vascular Plant Diversity. An internet guide. Go to: Introduction to Plant Taxonomy.

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew:
! Plants of the World Online.
Browse 1,424,000 global plant names, 202,500 detailed descriptions, and 372,400 images. Excellent!

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew:
! The Kew Herbarium Catalogue . This Herbarium houses approximately 7 million specimens, collected from all around the world. Navigate from advanced search.

John W. Kimball: Kimball´s Biology Pages. The pages represent an online biology textbook. Go to: Plants.

Biological Sciences, Ohio State University, Lima: Plant Biology at OSU Lima.
This expired link is now available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

! MAdLand — Molecular Adaptation to Land: Plant Evolution to Change.
The MAdLand community has made contributions to publicly available data resources for plant (evolutionary) biology and expanded the list of organismal systems accessible for research. Note the statement of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) for the established Priority Programme SPP 2237. Worth checking out:
MAdLand Publications.
The interactive and downloadable Plant Evolution Poster.
Exhibition posters "Grün, Steine, Erde. Unsere Welt im Wandel" (in German, by M. Schreiber and S. Gould).

! S. Magallón (2009): Flowering plants (Magnoliophyta). PDF file, In: S.B. Hedges and S. Kumar (eds.): The Timetree of Life (see here).

! Susana Magallón and Khidir W. Hilu (2009): Land plants (Embryophyta). PDF file, In: S.B. Hedges and S. Kumar (eds.): The Timetree of Life (see here).
These expired links are now available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

Richard M. McCourt, Department of Botany Academy of Natural Sciences Philadelphia; R. L. Chapman, Mark Buchheim and Brent D. Mishler, Tree of Life Project: Green plants. Green plants as defined here includes a broad assemblage of photosynthetic organisms that all contain chlorophylls a and b, store their photosynthetic products as starch inside the double-membrane-bounded chloroplasts in which it is produced, and have cell walls made of cellulose. They include all organisms commonly known as green algae and land plants, including liverworts, mosses, ferns and other nonseed plants, and seed plants.

Montgomery College Library, Conroe, TX: Overviews of Plantae. An annotated link list.
Website outdated, download a version archived by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

! Daniel L. Nickrent, Department of Plant Biology, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois: Elements of Plant Systematics. Lecture notes.
A version archived by Internet Archive Wayback Machine.
Go to: A Look at the History of Plant Classification.

Dan Nickrent, Department of Plant Biology, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale: The Parasitic Plant Connection.
A repository of information on parasitic plants.

Dan Nickrent and Karen Renzaglia, Department of Plant Biology, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale: Land Plants Online.
Snapshot taken by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

Lone Star College, North Harris: Resources and tutorials. Go to:
Plant Kingdom References.
Snapshots available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

! Oxford Bibliographies.
Oxford Bibliographies offers exclusive, authoritative research guides. Combining the best features of an annotated bibliography and a high-level encyclopedia, this cutting-edge resource directs researchers to the best available scholarship across a wide variety of subjects. Go to:
Fossils (by Kevin Boyce).
Evolution of Land Plants (by Charles C. Davis and Sarah Mathews).
Evolution of Fungi (by David Hibbett).
Bryophyte Ecology (by Heinjo During).

! The Paleobiology Database (PBDB).
PBDB is a public database of paleontological data that anyone can use, maintained by an international non-governmental group of paleontologists. The Paleobiology Database has been supported by many grants over the years, mostly from the National Science Foundation. You may navigate from the
Paleobiology Database Guest Menu or check out the
Frequently Asked Questions. Please also note the detailed and excellent tutorial:
! M.D. Uhen et al. (2023): Paleobiology Database User Guide Version 1.0 Free access, PaleoBios, 40: 1-56. See also here (in PDF).

! Phyto Images
Database hosted by the Cornell University Vascular Plant Herbarium. Software deveopment by Kevin C. Nixon and Jan De Laet).
This site includes a wide variety of vascular plant and bryophyte photos of high quality. Phyto Images belongs to DOL (DiversityofLife.org), which is a web interface based on the Encino Software Project. The Encino project is a unified set of software tools for storing, retrieving, and analyzing biodiversity. Superbly done!

! Plantillustrations.org (by Max Antheunisse and Jan Koeman).
Plantillustrations.org is a completely non-commercial website. On top you see 2 search boxes at the right. The white one is for entering scientific names, the grey one for vernacular ones.
You may likewise navigate from:
the List of currently included artists.
Don't miss the useful link list

H. Prier et al. (2004): Exotische Gehölze im KIRCHHEIMER-Arboretum Freiburg. PDF file, in German. LGRB-Informationen, Heft 15 (Landesamt für Geologie, Rohstoffe und Bergbau Baden-Württemberg, Freiburg i. Br.). See also here.

C. Puginier et al. (2021): Plant–microbe interactions that have impacted plant terrestrializations. Free access, Plant Physiology.
Note figure 1: 1 Phylogenetic tree of the Viridiplantae. showing the evolution of the AMS [arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis], the putative evolutions of lichens and clades that contain LFA [lichen forming algae] and terrestrial species.
Figure 3: Lichens and their tolerance against terrestrial-related constraints.

James L. Reveal, Norton-Brown Herbarium, University of Maryland: Advanced Plant Taxonomy. Systems of classification for magnoliophyta, history of systematic botany, approaches to biological classification, taxonomic hierarchy, types of data.

Tim Revell, Mt. San Antonio College, Walnut, CA.
Bio 2 - Plant and Animal Biology. Go to:
Plant Classification (Nonvascular). Lecture notes, Powerpoint presentation.

Hamish Robertson, Iziko Museums, Cape Town: Classification of Life on Earth. An overview of systematics. Go to: The Kingdom of Plants (Embryophyta).
The links are to versions archived by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

John Rushin, Missouri Western State University:
History of Plant Taxonomy.
Plant Taxonomy (Systematics).
Powerpoint presentations.

Scott Russell, Department of Botany and Microbiology, University of Oklahoma, College of Arts and Sciences, Norman: Morphology of Vascular Plants. Lecture notes, chiefly PDF files, including palaeobotany topics.
These expired websites are now available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.
See also here.

ScienceDirect:
! Viridiplantae

! M.G. Simpson (2010): Evolution and diversity of green and land plants. PDF file, p. 55–72. In: Simpson MG, (ed.): Plant systematics. 2nd ed., Cambridge (MA): Academic Press.

Dan Skean, Albion College, Albion, Michigan: Albion College Vascular Plant Image Gallery. Images are listed by class and then alphabetically by family and scientific name.
This expired link is now available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

The Species 2000 & ITIS Catalogue of Life.

! P.F. Stevens and Hilary Davis, Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis: Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. The focus of this site is on angiosperms and emphasis is placed on plant families. You can also navigate from the Orders- or the Families-website. Go to:
EVOLUTION OF LAND PLANTS.

! Department of Phanerogamic Botany, Swedish Museum of Natural History: Linnean herbarium (S-LINN): Superbly done!

Syllabus of Plant Families, A. Engler´s Syllabus der Pflanzenfamilien (13th edition by Wolfgang Frey):
4 Pinopsida (Gymnosperms), Magnoliopsida (Angiosperms) p.p.: Subclass Magnoliidae [Amborellanae to Magnolianae, Lilianae p.p. (Acorales to Asparagales)].

SysTax. A database system for systematics and taxonomy. The SysTax database system comprises concept-based botanical and zoological systematics, literature, botanic gardens, herbaria, and zoological collections, etc. Go to:
Taxon Browser, Botany.

Tarleton State University, (by A. Nelson (?)), Stephenville, Texas A&M University System:
Plant Evolution and Diversity. Powerpoint presentation.

! The Tree of Life Web Project (ToL). This project is a collaborative effort of biologists from around the world. On more than 3000 World Wide Web pages, the project provides information about the diversity of organisms on Earth, their evolutionary history (phylogeny), and characteristics. Go to: Green plants (by Richard M. McCourt, R. L. Chapman, Mark Buchheim, and Brent D. Mishler)

! United States Department of Agriculture (USDA): (PLANTS is a collaborative effort of the USDA NRCS National Plant Data Center (NPDC), the USDA NRCS Information Technology Center (ITC), the USDA National Information Technology Center (NITC), and many other partners): PLANTS Database. The PLANTS Database provides standardized information about the vascular plants, mosses, liverworts, hornworts, and lichens of the U.S. and its territories.

Wayne's Word (by Wayne P. Armstrong, Palomar College,San Marcos, CA):
The Five Kingdoms Of Life. Brief information about the five major kingdoms, including the Monera, the Protista (Protoctista), the Fungi, the Plantae, and the Animalia.

! Wikipedia (a free-content encyclopedia): Spermatophyte.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
Category:2019 in science.
List of years in paleontology.
Category:2010s in paleontology.

These paleobotany lists record new fossil plant taxa:
! 2015 in paleobotany.
! 2016 in paleobotany
! 2017 in paleobotany.
! 2018 in paleobotany.
! 2019 in paleobotany.
! 2020 in paleobotany
! 2021 in paleobotany
! 2022 in paleobotany
! 2023 in paleobotany