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 385 million years old has an outer wrapping and a spout that looks built to catch windborne pollen, but no coat closed all the way round; the oldest true seeds are more than ten million years younger.
Why it matters
Water was the last thing tying plants to low, damp ground. Once that dependence was packaged away, 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 among the oldest accepted true seeds, at about 372 Ma.
Sources
- Rothwell et al. (1989), Botanical Gazette · Elkinsia gen. nov., a late Devonian gymnosperm with cupulate ovules
- Gerrienne et al. (2004), Science · Runcaria, a middle Devonian seed plant precursor
- 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
See it on the timeline