Evolutionary history of plants foliage consisted of fern-like fronds, although they were not closely related to ferns. The oldest fossil evidence of seed plants is of Late Devonian age, and they appear to have evolved out of an earlier group known as the progymnosperms. These early seed plants ranged from trees to small, rambling shrubs; like most early progymnosperms, they were woody plants with fern-like foliage. They all bore ovules, but no cones, fruit or similar. While it is difficult to track the early evolution of seeds, the lineage of the seed ferns may be traced from the simple trimerophytes through homosporous Aneurophytes. This
Evolutionary history of plants such as "Rhynia" preserved in the Rhynie chert is of similar complexity, which is taken to support this hypothesis. By contrast, with the exception of "Psilotum" modern vascular plants have heteromorphic sporophytes and gametophytes in which the gametophytes rarely have any vascular tissue. There is no evidence that early land plants of the Silurian and early Devonian had roots, although fossil evidence of rhizoids occurs for several species, such as "Horneophyton". The earliest land plants did not have vascular systems for transport of water and nutrients either. "Aglaophyton", a rootless vascular plant known from Devonian fossils in the Rhynie chert