Living fossils: the plants holding the key to ancient and modern climate change

Despite being (somewhat surprisingly) named after a pubic triangle, Ginkgo biloba can help us understand atmosphere changes over nearly 300 million years

Ask the average person to name a living fossil, the chances are they will think of the coelacanth, or perhaps horseshoe crabs. However, plant examples of living fossils are all around us, surviving from long before the rise of today's dominant plants. The flowering plants, or angiosperms, are the basis of our food chain and include grasses and broad-leaved trees. But seed plants such as conifers and cycads, and even ancient spore producers such as ferns and clubmosses, continue to earn a living in environments where they are not squeezed out by highly efficient, flowering newcomers.

Related: Exquisite fossil coral unmasked in wet slabs