Molecular and biochemical aspects of plant terrestrialization

The transition from water to land was a major evolutionary step for the green lineage. Based on fossil data, this event probably occurred some 480–430 million years ago, during the Ordovician and the early Silurian and initiated the explosive evolution that led to the modern diversity of photosynthetic organisms living on Earth. The chronological steps are still puzzling, but the great advances in genetics have allowed some of them to be positioned on the time axis.