WHEN THE EARTH WAS GREEN

Fossil plants allow us to touch the lost worlds from billions of years of evolutionary backstory. Each petrified leaf and root [shows] 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 [has] 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. ... Using the same scientifically-informed narrative technique [from his] award-winning The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, ... Riley Black brings readers back in time to prehistoric seas, swamps, forests, and savannas where critical moments in plant evolution unfolded--