Highlights d The earliest forests in the Devonian can be very large and potentially abundant d Devonian Xinhang forest consists of dense and new tree lycopsid Guangdedendron d Guangdedendron may be monocarpic and dioecious, showing the earliest stigmarian root d Devonian forests could contribute greatly to CO 2 decline and coastal consolidation

New megafossil and microfossil data indicate four episodes in the diversification of Silurian–Early Carboniferous land plants of South China, a relatively continuous regional record. Plant diversity increased throughout, but the rising curve was punctuated by three major falls. There were peaks of origination in the Ludlow–Pragian, Givetian, late Famennian and Visean and peaks of extinction in the Pragian–Emsian, Givetian and early Tournaisian. Speciation and extinction rates were highest in the Lochkovian–Pragian and became progressively lower in subsequent stages. High correlation coefficients indicate that these events are associated with the availability of land habitat contingent on eustatic variations and increasing numbers of cosmopolitan genera. Meanwhile, proportions of endemic genera declined gradually. Due to less endemism and more migrations, both speciation and species extinction rates reduced. The changes of diversity and the timing of the three extinctions of land plants in South China are similar to those known already from Laurussia. However, the largest events in the Lochkovian–Pragian and subsequent smaller ones have not been seen in the global pattern of plant evolution. These land plant events do not correspond well temporally with those affecting land vertebrates or marine invertebrates. In South China, the diversity curve of land plants is generally opposite to that of marine faunas, showing a strong effect of eustatic variations. The increasing diversity of both land vertebrates and plants was punctuated above the Devonian–Carboniferous boundary, known as Romer's Gap, implying common underlying constraints on macroevolution of land animals and plants.

Seed plants with ovules were abundant in the Late Devonian of Euramerica and they contribute significantly to our understanding of their early history. However, coeval ovules have been scarce in other regions of the world. Specimens of the seed plant Cosmosperma polyloba gen. et sp. nov. Wang et al. were recently obtained from the Upper Devonian (Famennian) Wutong Formation, at Fanwan Village, Changxing County, Zhejiang Province, China. This new seed plant has cupulate ovules, the uniovulate cupules with up to 16 distal segments and with minute spines on the outer surface, synangiate pollen organs bearing six to eight microsporangia fused only at the base, and planate and highly dissected pinnules in alternate arrangement. It differs from other Devonian seed plants mainly in the organization and position of the uniovulate and ornamented cupule, and in the highly dissected pinnules. Cosmosperma Wang et al. represents the first Devonian ovules recovered from China or eastern Asia and further illustrates the diversity of early spermatophytes. As for the Late Devonian seed plants, it is suggested that the pollen organs are synangiate and simple in organization, and the branches and leaves are generally planate.

No abstract

No abstract