When the Earth Was Green
Plants, Animals, and Evolution's Greatest Romance
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Winner, A Friend of Darwin Award, 2024
A gorgeously composed look at the longstanding relationship between prehistoric plants and life on Earth
Fossils plants allow us to touch the lost worlds from billions of years of evolutionary backstory. Each petrified leaf and root show us that dinosaurs, saber-toothed cats, and even humans would not exist without the evolutionary efforts of their leafy counterparts. It has been the constant growth of plants that have allowed so many of our favorite, fascinating prehistoric creatures to evolve, oxygenating the atmosphere, coaxing animals onto land, and forming the forests that shaped our ancestors’ anatomy. It is impossible to understand our history without them. Or, our future.
Using the same scientifically-informed narrative technique that readers loved in the award-winning The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, in When the Earth Was Green, Riley Black brings readers back in time to prehistoric seas, swamps, forests, and savannas where critical moments in plant evolution unfolded. Each chapter stars plants and animals alike, underscoring how the interactions between species have helped shape the world we call home. As the chapters move upwards in time, Black guides readers along the burgeoning trunk of the Tree of Life, stopping to appreciate branches of an evolutionary story that links the world we know with one we can only just perceive now through the silent stone, from ancient roots to the present.
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In this striking study, science writer Black (The Last Days of the Dinosaurs) presents vignettes illustrating the complex interplay between animals, plants, and the environment from 1.2 billion through 15,000 years ago. An account of a proto-dinosaur's wanderings around a forest of araucarioxylon trees 220 million years ago details how the conifers thrived in a warming world by growing massive root systems able to withstand frequent wildfires. Describing a jeholornis bird feasting on a magnolia flower 125 million years ago, Black discusses how early birds took to swallowing seeds whole after losing their teeth, helping plants spread farther than they'd previously been able to. The entries emphasize chance's prominent role in evolution. For instance, Black imagines a saber-toothed cat chowing down on catnip and notes that the plant initially evolved to produce the chemical compound that intoxicates felines as a defense against insects, who are repulsed by the substance. Black excels at packaging science for lay readers, weaving illuminating natural history into sparkling descriptions of what the Earth was like millions of years ago ("The humid, dew-dappled forests that have cradled... Cretaceous survivors are shifting now, the greenhouse world becoming one where a persistent and sweltering summer is feeling the aches of seasonal change once more"). This is another triumph from Black. Illus.
