An exciting time travel through the evolutionary history of plants led the visitors of the Federal Garden Show in Koblenz to the ZENDOME.30M. It is part of the theme garden “Vielwalt im Wandel – Evolution”, which was presented there near the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress. In the geodesic dome itself, the infinite diversity of today’s flowering plants was displayed.
“Biodiversity is not a constant quantity. Earth’s history teaches us that new species arise and species perish at the same time. In the long-term cycle of nature, no eternity exists.
Starting with the origin of life on planet Earth, a journey through time took us through the essential inventions’ of life, from bacteria capable of photosynthesis, to green algae, to land plants – some 3,3 billion years after the first life emerged. Around 480 million years ago, the conquest of the mainland by plants with forms reminiscent of today’s liverworts began.
The presentation of such Rhineland-Palatinate first colonizers formed the introduction to the history of development (evolution) of plants. Again and again in the history of the earth there were great extinction events. These changed the further development of the plant world fundamentally. Using today’s closest relatives ‘living fossils’, visitors to the BUGA can trace the changes.” (Bundesgartenschau Koblenz 2011)
Photo credit: Hans Joosten