The study of plants is called botany or plant biology. Botanists believe that the plants that live on the land today are descendants of tiny green plants that lived about 350 million years ago in the ancient seas.

Plants which produce seeds are the plants which dominate the land today. Aquatic plants do not produce seeds. The first seed plants appeared during the Devonian period (approximately 350 million years ago) and were known as the seed ferns. Paleobotanists believe that the seed ferns are the ancestors of the seed plants living today.