When the Earth Was Green

Plants, Animals, and Evolution's Greatest Romance

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Pub Date Feb 25 2025 | Archive Date Mar 11 2025

Description

Winner, A Friend of Darwin Award, 2024

A gorgeously composed look at the longstanding relationship between prehistoric plants and life on Earth

Fossils plants allow us to touch the lost worlds from billions of years of evolutionary backstory. Each petrified leaf and root show us that dinosaurs, saber-toothed cats, and even humans would not exist without the evolutionary efforts of their leafy counterparts. It has been the constant growth of plants that have allowed so many of our favorite, fascinating prehistoric creatures to evolve, oxygenating the atmosphere, coaxing animals onto land, and forming the forests that shaped our ancestors’ anatomy. It is impossible to understand our history without them. Or, our future.

Using the same scientifically-informed narrative technique that readers loved in the award-winning The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, in When the Earth Was Green, Riley Black brings readers back in time to prehistoric seas, swamps, forests, and savannas where critical moments in plant evolution unfolded. Each chapter stars plants and animals alike, underscoring how the interactions between species have helped shape the world we call home. As the chapters move upwards in time, Black guides readers along the burgeoning trunk of the Tree of Life, stopping to appreciate branches of an evolutionary story that links the world we know with one we can only just perceive now through the silent stone, from ancient roots to the present.

Winner, A Friend of Darwin Award, 2024

A gorgeously composed look at the longstanding relationship between prehistoric plants and life on Earth

Fossils plants allow us to touch the lost worlds from...


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EDITION Other Format
ISBN 9781250288998
PRICE $29.00 (USD)
PAGES 304

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Average rating from 4 members


Featured Reviews

Yet again, Riley Black has written a book that is simultaneously engaging and informative. "When the Earth was Green" is a worldwide view of plants (and animals) evolution throughout time. Black's novel takes us on a journey, complete with textbook quality information, starting with the first land-going plant hundreds of millions of years ago. From there, she takes us on a tour of plants and the evolution of those critical to the development of plants we see every day. Sprinkled throughout her novel are fun fictional stories told from the viewpoints of those time-appropriate plants and animals that help the reader to feel as if they are actually there. Each chapter is short, and frankly, ! wish some of the information provided in the Appendices at the novel's conclusion were incorporated into each chapter, rather than added as an afterthought. However, short chapters do not indicate poor quality - rather, Black condenses so much information into a story-like section that provides you with enough information to pique your curiosity but not enough to overwhelm or bore you. My only critique of the book is that pictures of the many plants and animals referenced were not included (I know, I know-it's not a picture book), so I found myself Googling ancient plants and animals multiple times in every chapter.
Overall, "When the Earth was Green" is a solid 3.75 star book thanks in part to the conversational tone, textbook quality information and overall ease to read.
I received this Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for my honest opinion. Thanks to Riley Black, NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the early copy.

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