Editing Ordovician (section)

===Flora===

[[Green algae]] were common in the Late Cambrian (perhaps earlier) and in the Ordovician. Terrestrial plants probably evolved from green algae, first appearing as tiny non-[[vascular plants|vascular]] forms resembling [[Marchantiophyta|liverwort]]s, in the middle to late Ordovician.<ref name="Porado-etal-2016">{{cite journal |last1=Porada |first1=P. |last2=Lenton |first2=T. M. |last3=Pohl |first3=A. |last4=Weber |first4=B. |last5=Mander |first5=L. |last6=Donnadieu |first6=Y. |last7=Beer |first7=C. |last8=Pöschl |first8=U. |last9=Kleidon |first9=A. |title=High potential for weathering and climate effects of non-vascular vegetation in the Late Ordovician |journal=[[Nature Communications]] |date=November 2016 |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=12113 |doi=10.1038/ncomms12113|pmid=27385026 |pmc=4941054 |bibcode=2016NatCo...712113P }}</ref> Fossil spores found in Ordovician sedimentary rock are typical of bryophytes.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Steemans |first1=P. |last2=Herisse |first2=A. L. |last3=Melvin |first3=J. |last4=Miller |first4=M. A. |last5=Paris |first5=F. |last6=Verniers |first6=J. |last7=Wellman |first7=C. H. |title=Origin and Radiation of the Earliest Vascular Land Plants |journal=[[Science (journal)|Science]] |date=2009-04-17 |volume=324 |issue=5925 |pages=353 |doi=10.1126/science.1169659 |pmid=19372423 |bibcode=2009Sci...324..353S |hdl=1854/LU-697223 |s2cid=206518080 |url=https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/697223 |hdl-access=free |access-date=2022-06-08 |archive-date=2021-08-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210815182721/https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/697223 |url-status=live }}</ref>

[[File:Ordovician Land Scene.jpg|thumb|Colonization of land would have been limited to shorelines]]
Among the first land [[fungi]] may have been [[arbuscular mycorrhiza]] fungi ([[Glomerales]]), playing a crucial role in facilitating the colonization of land by plants through [[Mycorrhiza|mycorrhizal symbiosis]], which makes mineral nutrients available to plant cells; such fossilized fungal [[hypha]]e and [[spore]]s from the Ordovician of Wisconsin have been found with an age of about 460 million years ago, a time when the land flora most likely only consisted of plants similar to non-vascular [[bryophyte]]s.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Redecker |first=D. |author2=Kodner, R.  |author3=Graham, L. E.  |year=2000 |title=Glomalean fungi from the Ordovician |journal=[[Science (journal)|Science]] |volume=289 |issue=5486 |pages=1920–1921 |doi=10.1126/science.289.5486.1920 | pmid=10988069 |bibcode = 2000Sci...289.1920R |s2cid=43553633 }}</ref>