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In our Time: The Evolution of Trees

The ideas, people and events that have shaped our world.

Misha Glenny and guests discuss the earliest evidence we have of the existence of trees and how even plants we might have on windowsills or as vegetables in gardens can and do, in the right conditions, evolve into trees. Since their emergence around 400 million years ago after low lying plants started to develop stronger stems and grow taller and more upright, trees have transformed our planet, so creating ecosystems, altering the atmosphere and setting the stage for the world as we know it today.

With

Jenny McElwain
1711 Chair of Botany at Trinity College Dublin and Director of Trinity Botanic Gardens

Christopher Berry
Senior Lecturer in Earth and Environmental Sciences at Cardiff University

And

Bill Baker
Senior Researcher at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

Release date:

50 minutes

On radio

Sat 21 Nov 2026 12:06

Broadcasts

  • Sat 21 Nov 2026 12:06
  • Sun 22 Nov 2026 03:06
  • Sun 22 Nov 2026 14:06
  • Sun 22 Nov 2026 17:06

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