Long before the first apple blossom opened or the first flower appeared, giants walked the earth. They were enormous spore-producing trees that created alien forests which would make sci-fi look normal. These were not just plants, they were the first ecosystem engineers, and their inventions can be found in contemporary gardens.
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Check PriceThe Carboniferous Champions
About 300 million years ago, Sigillaria was one of the many plants that existed in the time of the Carboniferous period. These plants were 100 feet tall and are called scale trees because of their diamond shaped bark patterns that were preserved in coal seams. While today’s trees reproduce through seeds, these trees reproduced through spores which cloudy many winds.
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Another great giant of this period is Lepidodendron. They grew even greater heights, and yet their trunks were only 2 feet wide. How was this possible? The answer lies in the fact that Lepidodendron trunks were hollow. This provided structural support without the great weight that would have been the case with a solid trunk. For millions of years, these incredible structures dominated the swampy environments of the Earth until the climate began to change.
Living Fossil Survivors
Ancient tales can be linked to nature’s beauty. Especially in today’s contemporary backyards, we can see the descendants of ancient woodlands in the plants that grow in many modern-day gardens. In fact, we may even have a Wollemi Pine, a tree that is 200 million years old. These trees are known as 'dinosaur trees' because they have almost 'dinosaur' relatives that haven't evolved in Australia. They were found in Australia in 1994. Now, garden centers sell 'dinosaur trees' to gardeners, giving them the opportunity to have a fragment of primitive Earth.
Another link to the distant past are cycads. These cone-bearing plants reproduce with structures that are older than the flowers that we see today. It may take decades for male and female plants of certain species to reach maturity, but once they do, they will synchronously reproduce as if they are on a schedule.
Ancient Survival Technologies
Current day gardens continue to draw inspiration from ancient vegetation as well as their advanced strategies for survival. Well before any blooming flora, ferns had predecessors that anchored themselves in the Carboniferous Period forests and excelled at surviving and even flourishing in the shade. Furthermore, during times of environmental strain, ferns' spore-based methods of reproduction are still more advantageous than the seed-based methods.
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Ginkgo trees have survived asteroid impacts and ice ages due to their deep roots and ability to avoid all pests and diseases. Ginkgo trees are also great for today's water wise gardens. Ginkgo trees are also unchanged for 270 million years. Many ancient plant families have advanced skills for surviving drought that can be used in gardens.
The Coal Connection
Your enhancement of garden soil using organic matter is an example of the same ecosystem principles that created our coal deposits. The ancient forests that created our coal deposits in present-day oxygen-poor swamp locations where the decomposition of plant material is slow, lead to the compression of that plant material, resulting in the formation of fossil fuels that provided the foundation of human civilization. Currently, modern compost piles work on the same principles, albeit with improved aeration.
Prehistoric plants developed a model for sustainable gardening that modern gardeners can replicate in numerous ways. These ancient forests were so effective at storing atmospheric carbon that they triggered ice ages. Composting and soil building are modern gardening activities that help cause ice ages.
Powerhouse Plants From Prehistoric Times Discovered in Our Gardens
Horsetails are found in marshy locations and are direct descendants of Calamites, giant rushes that formed bamboo-like thickets in prehistoric times. Today's horsetails still possess their ancestors' spore-cone reproduction and jointed stems- traits that are 400 million years old.
Though they are small now, the ancestors of club mosses are giant tree-sized Lepidodendron. These plants also still show, and produce spores in special structures, and show reproductive strategies that predate flowering plants by hundreds of millions of years.
Importance of Ancient Plants
Prehistoric evolution studies show us how prehistoric plants adjusted and survived. This helps modern day gardeners understand how to improve their gardening techniques. The plants that survived mass extinctions possess hardy and resilient genes that help today's gardeners. These plants also act as great pioneering species for sustainable landscapes.
Ancient survivors teach us what stability in ecosystems looks like. Prehistoric forests had simpler systems that created amazing stability over a huge amount of geological time. Before the relationships of the ecosystems were complicated by flowering plants, these forests were relying on simpler systems that yielded stability. A lot of modern permaculture systems mimic patterns of these primitive ecosystems.
Planting a fern or looking at a big ginkgo tree allows you to experience some of the most remarkable and successful plant families on Earth. These ancient connections to the deep time forests have been tried and tested and carry ancient genetic wisdom that is still working after hundreds of millions of years creating thriving forests.
Every ancient tree preserved and every prehistoric plant grown connects us to the ancient plant life on the Earth. These living fossils remind us that good gardening practice like the plants, are timeless.
