LIFE × EVOLUTION

The Invention of the Seed

~372 million years ago

Phanerozoic · Paleozoic · Devonian

Ferns and mosses need a film of water for their sperm to swim across. The seed did away with it twice over: pollen carried the male cell on the wind, and the embryo travelled sealed inside its own supply of food. The steps can be followed. A Belgian fossil of 385 million years has the wrapping and a spout that looks built to catch windborne pollen, but no closed coat around it; the oldest true seeds come twenty million years later.

Why it matters

Water was the last thing tying plants to low, damp ground. Once it was packaged, deserts, mountains and high latitudes opened up. There are more than 250,000 seed plants alive today, and almost every plant you can name is one of them.

Dating & uncertainty

Runcaria, from Belgium at 385 Ma, has almost everything a seed needs except a closed integument. Elkinsia, from the late Devonian of West Virginia, is the oldest accepted true seed at about 372 Ma.

Sources

1. Rothwell et al. (1989), Botanical Gazette · Elkinsia gen. nov., a late Devonian gymnosperm with cupulate ovules
2. Gerrienne et al. (2004), Science · Runcaria, a middle Devonian seed plant precursor
3. Li et al. (2025), Proceedings of the Royal Society B · New ovulate cupule further informs the relationships among early seed plants

Earth history as one day

22:02:001 h 58 min before midnight

if Earth’s 4.54 billion years were compressed into a single day