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Hello everyone and welcome to the End Defense of Plants podcast, the official podcast of

Endefensiveplants.com. What's up? This is your host, Matt. Welcome to the show. How is everyone

doing this week? Now, when we talk about ancient life on this planet, no organism can hold a candle

to what plants have been able to achieve. Indeed, among the oldest organisms in the world are plants, and the leader of those

are usually a member of the gymnosperm lineage. But as you're going to hear today, the age of a

plant is not as straightforward and understandable as it is for, say, something like an animal.

It's actually kind of a gray area in most cases, and it all comes down to

the fact that plants are fundamentally different types of organisms than animals are.

Joining us to talk about this is Dr. Chris Earle. He is particularly interested in biodiversity,

but today he's here to talk to us about trying to understand plant age.

You may be familiar with Dr. Earle's work on the gymnosperm database over at carnifers.org,

and I absolutely love the articles he has over there, all of the great information,

and I couldn't think of a better person to sit down and talk with about this topic.

So let's just jump right into it.

...