The origin of land plants is one of the most important events in the Earthʼs history, having influenced continental and marine ecology as well as the global climate system (Berner et al. 2007, Wellman 2010. Many authors have hypothesized that land plants, i.e. embryophytes, originated from charophycean green algae and that the earliest land plants were "bryophyte-like" (e.g. Steemans et al. 2009). Most plants naturally shed their sterile and fertile organs during their lives. Upon death, plants become disarticulated and only rarely it is possible to find large fragments, which provide direct evidence of their existence. Indirect evidence includes phytodebris (or palynodebris or nematoclasts) like tubes, tissues, cuticles and sporangia together with both dispersed or in situ spores and/or cryptospores. Spores are much more abundant than plant fossils because they are smaller and consist of resistant material (sporopollenin). It is generally considered that the spore record is several times greater than that of plant macrofossils (Beck & Strother 2001). Another advantage is the often enormous production of spores by their plant producers.
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