An excellent overview for undergraduates - and also graduate students and researchers - this innovative text recounts the epic story of plant life from its origins to the radiation of the flowering plants. To investgate how living plants might have evolved, Niklas conducts a series of computer-generated `walks' on fitness `landscapes', arriving at hypothetical forms of plant life strikingly similar to actual living plants and those of the distant past. He concludes with an extended consideration of molecular biology and palaeontology.